Overview
- Police say officers found 27-year-old Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano actively striking the statue with a sledgehammer and detained him at the scene, a response that occurred Wednesday night.
- Maldonado Soriano faces felony destruction of property, trespassing with intent to damage property and felony injury to a monument and is being held without bond with a court date pending.
- Images released by Prince William County police show the head of one depicted Marine severed and on the ground with additional gouges to other figures, and officials estimate repairs could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- The damaged work is a 9-foot limestone replica of the World War II Iwo Jima flag-raising sculpted by Felix de Weldon and sited near the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico.
- Investigators have not disclosed a motive or whether the statue can be fully restored, and the case may prompt questions about how the museum and military handle repairs, public access and funding for damaged memorials.