Francis Scott Key Statue Vandalized In Baltimore

BALTIMORE, MD - The Baltimore Police Department reissued its call for people to refrain from damaging monuments after a statue honoring Francis Scott Key ― writer of the "Star-Spangled Banner" ― was vandalized overnight.

"We know this is a hot-button issue," Baltimore Police Chief of Media Relations T.J. Smith said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. "...that doesn't give anyone the right to destroy property."

The Key statue is located in the 1200 block of North Eutaw Place. According to Smith, someone used spray-paint and a "red substance of some sort" to deface it.

On the monument, the words "Racist Anthem" were scrawled.

The vandalism was believed to have been a response to the third stanza of the national anthem, which states: "...No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave, And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

The vandalism occurred exactly 203 years after Key penned the poem that would later become the national anthem.

It was during the War of 1812, and the Maryland attorney was aboard a British ship trying to help negotiate the release of prisoners while the British bombed Fort McHenry on Sept. 13, 1814.

He wrote his poem on the ship, and when daylight came on Sept. 14, 1814, he said the flag over Fort McHenry was still there.

A French sculptor created the statue, which depicts Key presenting his poem on the water.

The monument honoring the writer was unveiled in 1911, after a fan of Key's poetry commissioned the work on Eutaw Place.

The poem was not adopted as the national anthem, the "Star-Spangled Banner," until 20 years later, in 1931.

"...this is a conversation that inolves more dialogue," Smith said Wednesday after the vandalism.

"There's a way to go about doing this," Smith said, "and I think that Baltimore if anyplace has seen how to go about [it]."

Last month, Mayor Catherine Pugh ordered four statues to be taken down once the Baltimore City Council voted for their removal.

The action came in the wake of a deadly riot involving white supremacists Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia, organized in response to that city's decision to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The issue is one former slave-holding areas grapple with more than 150 years after the end of the Civil War.

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There were no suspects as of Wednesday afternoon in the Key monument vandalism, nor was there surveillance footage that would help in the investigation, Smith said, but he stated: "Persons responsible will be held accountable."

It was not the first case of monument vandalism in Baltimore.

Three weeks ago, a monument erected in 1792 was destroyed by someone with a sledgehammer on Harford Road at Walther Avenue. It was the oldest monument to Columbus in the U.S.

"That's the story de jour, these monuments again," Smith said Wednesday.

"I wish we could focus on some really important things," he said, "like these guns."

During Wednesday's press conference, Smith highlighted a major gun seizure in south Baltimore that occurred on Sept. 11 amid an illegal dice game, where the suspect was allegedly "hunting humans."

Baltimore, struggling to contain violent crime, has seen more than 240 homicides so far this year.

Submit a tip to Baltimore Police.

Main photo of the Francis Scott Monument on Sept. 13 by Elizabeth Janney. Black-and-white photo of the Key monument on Eutaw Place in Baltimore, by Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection, courtesy of the Library of Congress.