Update 7/26: TMZ has released video footage of the incident, capturing the now-identified suspect, 24-year-old Austin Clay, allegedly bashing Trump’s star in. This post has been updated.
Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has become an easy target for folks looking to vent their rage against the president: They’ve covered it in graffiti, let their dogs shit on it, blocked it off with tiny border walls—defaced it in pretty much every way imaginable. But on Wednesday, somebody apparently decided to just wipe the thing off the face of the Earth, laying into it with a pickax until it was reduced to a pile of rubble.
Videos by VICE
According to NBC Los Angeles, a man walked up to the star in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, pulled a pickax out of a guitar case, and went to town on it. And, in a move even stranger than pulling a mining tool out of a guitar case, the man apparently went straight to the police station afterward to report what he’d done to the cops.
The suspect has since been identified as 24-year-old Austin Clay, but there’s still no line on his motive—but between Trump threatening Iran, buddying up with Putin, putting Roe v. Wade in serious jeopardy, and separating immigrant parents from their children, there’s plenty for someone to be ticked off about.
It’s the second time someone has completely decimated Trump’s star on the Walk of Fame, which he was awarded in 2007 for his role on The Apprentice. Back in 2016, a guy disguised as a city worker demolished the thing with a sledgehammer, saying he wanted to auction off the pieces to support Trump’s sexual assault accusers. If Wednesday’s vandal gets slapped with the same charges as his predecessor, he could face up to three years in prison—though the first star-smasher just wound up getting 20 days of community service and a $4,400 fine, NBC LA reports.
It took about a month to rebuild Trump’s star last time it got demolished, so it shouldn’t be too long before the president’s name is back on the Walk of Fame, ready for the next round of protesters to scrawl swastikas on it, flip it off, and piss on it, until the next guy with heavy construction equipment presumably comes along to destroy it.
Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.
Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
