In a video uploaded to Reddit on Sunday, a man defaces and destroys Black Lives Matter signs and structures in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis.
The 4-minute video, posted to r/Minneapolis, begins with a black truck driving into the foreground as a man parks and exits the vehicle. He leaves the headlights on, the driver’s side door open, and the left turn signal flashing.
The man is dressed in a black T-shirt, grey jeans, and black high-top sneakers; he appears pixelated on camera in the middle of the night.
The man walks over to the square and begins attacking signs that read “Black Lives Matter.” He tears structures apart and flips tables in the square.
He then walks back to his car and grabs an ax from the bed of the truck. He swings the ax against the painted wooden house positioned in the middle of the memorial. He bashes windows, tears a Black Lives Matter sign from the front of a structure meant to represent a house, and breaks the wooden beams.
As the man attacks the facade of the structure with the ax, the crashing sounds intensify. After he bashes down the door, the man enters the house and begins removing items from inside. There is a flashing orange light that appears on the side of the house from the truck’s turn signal illuminating the damage on the scene.
“Woah,” he says as he enters the single-room structure.
The man reappears on camera holding two propane tanks and bringing them outside the house. He walks back into the house and is hidden from view but continues chucking items onto the pavement.
A few onlookers nearby begin shouting at him, and the man quickly walks away from the scene, leaving the ax behind.
“Hey what the fuck are you doing?” one person yells out of frame. “Get the fuck out of here!”
The man does not respond as he walks towards his truck, looking back at the onlooker who yelled. The man gets back in his car and drives away with his turn signal still flashing.
The Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment about the incident.
Users on Reddit were intrigued by the video. Some speculated that the ax looks similar to a fireman’s ax, possibly hinting at his background as a firefighter or police officer.
“I bet he is a cop,” one user commented.
“Yep, that’s why he took his time. Knew nobody was coming because he forewarned them what he was going to do,” another user added.
As the video shows, the man was undisturbed while defacing the property for three and a half minutes before passersby began yelling at him.
Other users noted that because the man left the ax at the scene, it could help investigators pull fingerprints from the weapon that trace back to him.
“I’m guessing off duty firefighter with the fire axe and pickup truck. He left the axe behind hopefully they can pull prints from it,” one user wrote.
Many commenters described his bashing of the memorial as deplorable, especially because he ran away so quickly the moment he was caught.
“Imagine being so full of hate you tear down memorials of a man killed by police,” another user commented.
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