TRIANGLE, VA – A Stafford man has been charged with felony destruction of property after police say he knocked the head off the Iwo Jima Statue near the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, police say.
According to the Prince William County Police Department, officers responding to the statue at the intersection of Richmond Highway and Fuller Road at about 10:15 p.m. on Wednesday found a man actively attacking the statue with a sledgehammer.
Police say the suspect, Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano, 27, of Stafford, was detained without incident.
According to police, Maldonado Soriano knocked the head off one soldier depicted in the statue and did other damage estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars. He is charged with felony destruction of property, trespass with intent to damage property and felony injury to a monument.
The nine-foot Iwo Jima statue standing near one entrance to Marine Base Quantico and a short walk from the National Museum of the Marine Corps was carved out of limestone by Felix de Weldon in 1945, according to the Marine Corps University.
Weldon would go on to recreate the scene as the 100-ton bronze Iwo Jima Monument, which now sits in front of Arlington National Cemetery. That monument was dedicated in 1954. The Quantico statue is one of several smaller-scale statues Weldon created of the scene.
Patch has contacted the U.S. Marine Corps for comment.
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