The Battle of Iwo Jima monument in Quantico, Virginia, has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage after a man beheaded one of the statues Wednesday evening, police said.
Officers responding to a report of destruction of property at the U.S. Marine Corps Base Quantico around 10:31 p.m. saw a man “actively damaging the statue with a sledgehammer” and detained him without incident, Prince William County police said.
The suspect, 27-year-old Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano of Stafford, Virginia, has been charged with felony destruction of property, trespass with intent to damage, and felony injury to a monument, court records show. He remains in custody without bond ahead of a court appearance that was pushed to Monday morning.
CNN reached out to Maldonado Soriano’s attorney listed in court records for comment.
Maldonado Soriano, a Mexican national, has been in the US since 1999, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The agency told CNN he was granted Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status during the Obama administration.
Maldonado Soriano’s motive for vandalizing the monument remains unclear, authorities said. “As far as a motive, the accused has given us multiple, conflicting reasons,” said Sgt. Erin Noble with Prince William County police.
The damaged monument — located about 36 miles south of Washington, DC— is a smaller replica of sculptor Felix de Weldon’s Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, and it depicts the iconic photo captured by photojournalist Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945, showing six US Marines raising an American flag on Japan’s Iwo Jima Island during World War II.
De Weldon carved the statue from limestone, and Marine Corps Base Quantico describes it as a “non-heroic-size” replica of the 60-foot bronze original in Arlington.
While on duty in the Navy, de Weldon began working on the statue in 1945 after seeing Rosenthal’s photo, and he completed the smaller limestone version for Quantico before the end of the year, according to the Marines. Arlington’s larger version was not completed until 1954.
There is currently no timeline for repairs, police said.
By Diego Mendoza, CNN
