A Stafford County, Virginia man is being held without bond after allegedly attacking the Iwo Jima monument near Marine Corps Base Quantico with a sledgehammer, causing damage police estimate in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Prince William County police responded around 10:13 p.m. Wednesday to the statue near Richmond Highway and Fuller Road in Quantico, just outside the base. Officers arrived to find a man “actively damaging the statue with a sledgehammer,” according to a police news release, and detained him on the scene.
Police identified the man as 27-year-old Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano. Among the damage was the removal of the head from one of the figures depicted in the monument.
Maldonado Soriano has been charged with felony destruction of property, trespass with intent to damage property and felony injury to a monument. He is being held without bond.
Police have not released a motive for the attack. Maldonado Soriano’s immigration status has not been disclosed.
The Iwo Jima monument commemorates the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi by six U.S. Marines during one of the deadliest battles of World War II, an image that has become one of the most recognized symbols of the United States Marine Corps.
