BANGOR, Maine — City police are investigating a pair of graffiti complaints over the last few days that appear to be related.
Bangor police Lt. Jeff Millard and Sgt. Larry Weber said Officer Dan Sanborn, who is leading the investigation, indicated in his report that the two incidents could be connected and that a similar white, washable substance was used.
Millard and Weber said there was no suspect as of Thursday evening and that the incidents remained under investigation.
The first complaint was filed with police Wednesday evening by Dana Lippitt, curator of the Bangor Museum and History Center, when someone used a washable white substance to sketch a side view of a skull with a tongue protruding from it on a window of the museum at 25 Broad St.
To the right of the drawing, the vandal scrawled the world “revolution,” Weber said, citing Sanborn’s report.
In addition to the skull was another graffito on a nearby construction door that appeared to her to have been executed with a stencil, Lippitt said Thursday in a brief telephone interview.
Lippitt said the incident was upsetting because the windows recently had been cleaned by inmates from Penobscot County Jail, who frequently are called upon to do community service work. She said the cleaning was done in anticipation of a window display about the Great Fire of 1911.
Though the window and door can be cleaned, Lippitt said she always reports such incidents to police. She said she reported a similar incident about four years ago. The museum received some restitution money after area teenagers were charged as a result of that investigation.
The second incident this week was reported early Thursday afternoon and involved the bronze “Lady Victory” statue, which was defaced. Millard and Weber said the same waxy white substance was used to outline the statue’s breasts.
The statue, located in Norumbega Park, serves as the city’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial. Designed by Brewer native Charles E. Tefft and cast in a New York City foundry, the statue has stood in the downtown park since its dedication in 1939.
On Thursday, Weber said that while some people consider graffiti an art form, many others consider it a form of criminal mischief. Cleaning it up drains public and private dollars.
“We could certainly use that money in more beneficial ways,” Weber said.