A “Black Lives Matter” mural featuring Sandra Bland in Ottawa, Canada, was defaced overnight by agitators with the “All Lives Matter” splinter group.
Bland is the 28-year-old black woman who killed herself in a Texas jail 3 days after she was arrested for allegedly assaulting a Texas state trooper.
Bland reportedly used a trash bag to hang herself in her Waller County jail cell on July 20.
Kalkidan Assefa and Allan Andre, the 2 artists who painted the mural, told the Ottawa Morning News that Bland inspired them to create the mural.
“I really wanted it to be a celebration of her life and her spirit,” Andre said.
Early Monday, the mural was defaced with white paint. Someone painted a white mustache over Band’s face along with the words “All Lives Matter” and other offensive language.
Carling Miller discovered the defaced mural late Monday. She and a friend stood guard over the painting until someone from “Black Lives Matter” arrived to fix it.
The mural was fixed by early Tuesday.
“It’s something bigger than I am and it’s also something that directly affects me as a black woman, and I just feel protective over it and the people who did it, and her spirit, said Miller. “So it was incredibly painful to see that that is the response that the mural got, that it wasn’t just covered over, that someone intentionally was trying to destroy [the mural] and hurt the people who created the mural. And I think it was a blatant attack on black folks just in general.”
