SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Crews in the southeast Missouri city of Springfield are cleaning up after paint was placed on a Confederate monument.
The vandalism was discovered Wednesday, at a time when heightened security surrounded President Donald Trump's visit to Springfield.
The monument is at the Springfield National Cemetery. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs confirms that someone vandalized the statue. The Greene County Sheriff's Department is investigating.
Confederate monuments have been coming down around the country since the 2015 fatal shooting of nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a 23-year-old white racist. But the pace has picked up since violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month.
