Man broke head off of Iwo Jima statue in Quantico with sledgehammer, police say
A man was arrested after taking a sledgehammer to the Iwo Jima statue in Quantico, Virginia, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, police say.
Prince William County police said they found Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano, 27, vandalizing the statue with the sledgehammer after 10 p.m. Wednesday.
There was extensive damage to the statue, and Maldonado Soriano removed the head of one of the statue’s Marines, police said.
Officers detained Maldonado Soriano, who is from Stafford County. He was charged with felony destruction of property, trespassing with the intent to damage property and felony injury to a monument.
He is being held in jail without bond. Police did not give any information about a potential motive for the vandalism.
Dr. Felix Weihs de Weldon carved the nine-foot limestone statue that now stands at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico over a nine-year period in the late 1940s and early 1950s after seeing photographer Joe Rosenthal’s dramatic photograph of the event. de Weldon also sculpted the Marine Corps War Memorial in D.C.
