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HOUSTON—A mural in midtown Houston depicting President Obama has once again been defaced by vandals.
The painting on the side of a building across the street from The Breakfast Klub, a popular midtown restaurant, was splattered with black paint sometime overnight Monday. The artist who created the mural says it’s the fourth time vandals have struck it since 2008.
“Same story different day,” said Marcus Jones, the owner of the building. “I think that there are some sad and sick people out there.”
The painting was a recreation of a photograph showing President Obama smiling and pointing at a camera. Houston artist Reginald Adams created it last October after his last mural was splashed with blood red paint. Surveillance video of that incident showed two men wearing masks and driving a pick-up truck, but the vandals were never caught.
Jones planned to review his surveillance system with police to determine whether his cameras had captured images of the latest crime.
“We’ve got to ask ourselves not what can the police do to prevent it, or what the security cameras do to prevent it, or what can Marcus do to prevent it,” he said. “We’ve got to ask ourselves, how do we heal our nation to a point where we don’t want to do these types of things to someone’s personal property.”
The mural has become something of a landmark in midtown Houston, visible to drivers taking the busy Travis exit from the Southwest Freeway. But it has also become emblematic of the political passions surrounding the election of the nation’s first black president.
“Even though we come a long way in this country, we still have a little way to go,” said Reggie Jones, a customer wearing an Obama T-shirt who was standing in line at the restaurant.
Adams plans to paint an entirely new mural on the wall sometime in the next few days.
come to mind when seeing that.
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