NORTHAMPTON — A 19-year-old Florence man was arrested Tuesday night for spray-painting City Hall during an event to remember George Floyd’s killing.
Police allege that they saw Henry Morgan spray-painting City Hall while officers were responding to a fistfight that broke out at the event and spilled into Main Street. Due to the large crowd, it was not “feasible at the time to intervene,” police wrote in a post on the Police Department’s Facebook page. Later that evening, police saw Morgan on Crafts Avenue and arrested him on charges of vandalism and resisting arrest.
Northampton police posted several images of the graffiti on its Facebook page. Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz said the graffiti was removed by city employees the following day. He declined to comment on the arrest deferring comment to law enforcement authorities.
Morgan was arraigned Wednesday and pleaded not guilty in Northampton District Court to the charges and was released on his own personal recognizance. His next court date is scheduled for July 14.
Also at Tuesday’s event, a large mural in memory of George Floyd was created by attendees and pasted onto the building during the memorial event, which was organized by the activist group Northampton Abolition Now.
City officials took down the memorial and Narkewicz said that people were allowed to gather and protest in front of City Hall, but not to paint or paste materials onto the building or obstruct entryways.
NAN member Ashwin Ravikumar said, “the actions of one teenager are not germane to the moral imperative that we as a community face to act in solidarity with the movement for Black lives by divesting from policing and investing in real community safety.”
Luis Fieldman can be reached lfieldman@gazettenet.com.