Former US Olympic team canoeist David Hearn could face a decade behind bars for allegedly damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The 67-year-old Hearn stopped at the Reflecting Pool on June 19 while on a bike ride after hearing news reports of ongoing problems after the controversial Trump administration renovation. As per USA Today, Hearn has materials expertise, saw a loose piece of the new rubbery sealant flapping in the water, and reached in to examine it.
US Park Police arrested him on the spot and detained him for five hours for questioning. Now he’s indicted on a felony charge of destruction of property, specifically that he “maliciously did injure, break and destroy” the reflecting pool.
The charge comes with a maximum ten-year prison sentence. US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Hearn “willfully destroyed property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. This was a deliberate act to damage the reflecting pool.”
Following his arrest, Hearn gave his side of the story, telling The Washington Post:
“I didn’t vandalize anything. I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
“Misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative.”
USA Today reports former Ambassador Norm Eisen as saying that regular Americans should be “deeply concerned” by this indictment:
“This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures. On the eve of our nation’s Independence Day, Americans should be deeply concerned by the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative.”
Jeanine Pirro also indicated the prosecutions won’t end here. In response to a question from a reporter about other people who have been arrested near the Reflecting Pool, she said her office is working on multiple other cases.
The Trump administration continues to place blame for the algal blooms and damage to the new lining on vandals. Trump himself alleges that person or persons unknown have “poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool and that they used “some form of knife or blade, and put a 250-foot-long gash into the beautiful facade of what took so much work, competence, and money to build and complete.”
As per NewsWeek, Scientists, materials engineers, and aquatic/pool experts have analyzed the peeling of the new blue lining and say it’s far more likely to be an installation and application problem than intentional vandalism, and also point out that the darker “American Blue” color chosen by Trump absorbs more solar heat and so encourages algal blooms.
