The couple caught on video defacing the city-approved Black Lives Matter mural in Martinez on the Fourth of July have been charged with three misdemeanor counts, including a hate crime, according to a release late Tuesday from the District Attorney's Office of Contra Costa County.
Members of the Martinez community have been standing guard over the street mural since the incident over the weekend.
"That’s not going to happen on our watch," said Patrick Langley, who guarded the mural on Monday. "We’re not going to accept that. Not in the Bay Area."
Langley, who is Black, told KCBS Radio that despite the incident, he believes awareness is growing among all races that Black Americans are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system.
"We’re getting killed, wronged, a lot of young black brothers - unarmed - being killed," he said. "I mean look at the George Floyd situation, changed the whole world. That’s why I’m here."
Jasmine Kanya, who is white and Filipina, said she came to the mural so that the responsibility of defending it would not fall entirely on the Black community.
"There are definitely a lot of supporters of this, so I don’t want the people who are doing the Black Lives Matter movement (to) feel that they don’t have support from the other side also. There definitely is support from all races," Kanya said.
While no citations have been made so far, police have made an arrest in a separate incident at the mural. Thirty-year-old Joseph Ozuna was taken into custody on Sunday for allegedly pointing a gun at Black Lives Matter supporters.
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