San Pedro Statues Graffitied With Colonizer

Sunday morning, June 21, San Pedro residents discovered “colonizer” had been sprayed onto a statue of a Spanish conquistador, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at Cabrillo Beach. Also, red paint was poured onto another, depicting former Sen. Steven M. White, supporter of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The residents reported that they rushed to clean them before crowds arrived to celebrate Father’s Day. 

At about 7 a. m. a member of the community was at the beach when she noticed that blood-red paint had been poured over the heads of these two statues, said San Pedro resident George Matthews, of the San Pedro Caring Proactive Residents Clean Up Crew. He and a group of about five people met about 8 a.m. and spent three hours using rags, paint thinner, graffiti remover and turpentine to dissolve and wipe away the paint.