RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Flaggers have offered a $1,500 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the vandal who painted “BLACK LIVES MATTER” on the Jefferson Davis Monument along Richmond’s Monument Avenue. The vandalism was discovered June 25.
“Work to remove the desecration continued this week, over a month later, as the vandals used an oil based paint that could not be removed by conventional cleaning methods,” Virginia Flaggers spokesman Grayson Jennings noted in an email.
The vandalism came following a petitionto remove the Confederate statues from Monument Avenue after the fatal shooting of nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Confederate figures Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and Matthew Fontaine Maury have monuments on Monument Avenue. A statue of African-American tennis great and humanitarian Aruthur Ashe was added in the 1990s.
According to the group’s Facebook page, the Virginia Flaggers are “Citizens of the Commonwealth who stand AGAINST those who would desecrate our Confederate Monuments and memorials, and FOR our Confederate Veterans.”
Anyone with information about this crime can call Crime Stoppers at 804-780-1000.