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‘They Can’t Erase Breonna’s Name’: Oakland Artist’s Vandalized Sculpture Now Missing

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What remained of the sculpted bust of Breonna Taylor was entirely destroyed Tuesday morning.
What remained of the sculpted bust of Breonna Taylor was entirely destroyed Tuesday morning.  (Erin Baldassari/KQED)

A sculpture of Breonna Taylor in downtown Oakland went missing on Tuesday after first being vandalized this past weekend.

On Saturday, the bust of Taylor located at the city’s Latham Square was found broken in pieces after being installed two weeks ago, eliciting outcry from the local community. On Tuesday morning, Leo Carson, the artist who created the piece, discovered that what remained of the ceramic sculpted bust of Taylor had been completely removed from its pedestal.

Carson told KQED that the sculpture "has been stolen and likely completely destroyed."

"This is a second attack on Breonna Taylor's image," Carson said. "Their first attack had absolutely the opposite effect of what they intended."

Concerned community members responded to that first instance of apparent vandalism by donating to a GoFundMe fundraiser hosted by Carson to help repair the damage. It has now raised more than $20,000 — more than four times its original goal.

Carson says he had initially estimated $5,000 to repair the original damage but now "there's a significantly greater amount of labor that will need to go into it [and] recreate the bust." He says any leftover funds will be donated to Taylor's family.

Originally, Carson had created the sculpture to honor Taylor and "to be a part of that chorus of art that's supporting Black Lives Matter."  The death of Taylor, a Black woman shot and killed by Louisville police, rallied nationwide protests over the summer. In downtown Oakland, dozens of murals and other artistic expressions supporting the Black Lives Matter movement were erected during local protests.

In a Tuesday afternoon press conference held at the now-empty pedestal, which originally housed the sculpture, Carson told reporters that he's still deciding how he'll rebuild the piece.

"If it's a different design, it will be bigger but I haven't gotten that far yet," he said.

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Mike Hutchinson, an elected member of the Oakland Unified Board of Education who represents District 5, also spoke at the press conference and said the sculpture's damage was indicative of the larger, historical mistreatment of the city's Black residents, including gentrification and displacement.

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"We have had a complicated history here in Oakland, but let's not forget what was once a 'Chocolate City' that was known around the world for what our Indigenous Black residents have produced, and now today we have this treatment," Hutchinson said, pointing to the empty pedestal.

In a statement to KQED, a city official said that the Oakland Police Department is investigating this latest incident.

"The sculpture was not a City-approved piece of public art, and the City encourages the artist, and all artists, to work with the City on public art installations," the statement said.

Carson told KQED that the latest attack on his sculpture is a call to the larger community to double down in its efforts against racism and to continue its support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"I think the most important thing right now is that we make a physical statement to the vandals that they can't push us out and they can't erase Breonna's name," he said.

KQED’s Marco Siler-Gonzalez and Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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