(Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump is threatening those who vandalize statues with jail time in response to Confederate landmarks being desecrated in recent weeks.
READ MORE: D.C. protesters try to tear down Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Park
In the wake of George Floyd’s death while in the custody of Minneapolis police, there have been protests and the destruction of monuments to monuments that honor Confederate soldiers and slave owners.
The statues on the Confederate monument are covered in graffiti and beheaded after a protest in Portsmouth, Va., Wednesday, June 10, 2020.
He cited the 2003 Veterans’ Memorial Preservation Act and vowed that anyone who damaged “any monument, statue or other such federal property” would be arrested and face the possibility of up to 10 years in prison.
As NPR reports, the legislation was directed at anyone who willfully destroyed or made any attempt to ruin “any structure, plaque, statue, or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.”
