STOCKTON, Calif. — The memorial of two fallen firefighters was restored after it was vandalized Monday.
Offended Stockton firefighters assembled a “strike team” to clean up the defaced monument, which had paint and graffiti marked on it. The team removed all traces of the graffiti.
“It reaps at the very core of who we are as first responders,” Stockton Chief Ken Johnson told CBS.
The memorial went up in 1997 after two firefighters were killed while battling a house fire.
A soon-to-be graduated firefighter, Bryan Golden, expressed his disdain over the vandalism. “This was erected as a tribute, as a healing mechanism for our community and our fire department. To have it vandalized, it’s just disgusting.”
With the firefighter academy graduation taking place Thursday, the firefighter’s union has hired a security to guard the memorial until the graduation is over.
Firefighters previously spent thousands of dollars fixing the memorial after another instance of vandalism. In light of the most recent case, the chief said, “We would ask for the respect of something we hold sacred, a gift that we’ve given the community to help understand and celebrate the service and understand the sacrifice.”
#Stockton firefighter memorial-desecrated while crews were saving lives! But wait & see how #firefighters responded. pic.twitter.com/QHRU8SZGX0
— Lemor Abrams (@LemorAbrams) June 16, 2016