Second Suspect Arrested In Theft Of Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial In Denver

Sixty-seven-year-old Herman Duran was arrested on March 10 and is being held on theft and criminal mischief charges.

Last month, on Feb. 20, a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was discovered vandalized in Denver, and authorities started a search for two suspects.

One of the suspects, according to 9 News, 47-year-old Robert Duran, turned himself in nine days later, on Feb. 29. Now, the media outlet has reported that the second suspect has been arrested in connection with the vandalism of the statue in City Park, the Denver Police Department said.

The Denver Police Department stated that 67-year-old Herman Duran was arrested on March 10 and is being held on theft and criminal mischief charges. Police Chief Ron Thomas theorized that the thieves stole three pieces from the monument to sell as scrap metal at the time of the theft.

“We will continue that investigation to determine what their specific motive was, but it does seem at this time as though their motive was just to get money,” Thomas said at a news conference on Feb. 28.

The Denver Post reported that Herman is in custody at the Downtown Detention Center on $5,000 bail. Robert was also arrested on suspicion of criminal mischief. The men stole pieces of the memorial on Feb. 18, and parks maintenance workers reported the theft to authorities on Feb. 21 after they found that a bronze panel, torch, and angel were removed from the memorial.

According to the Denver Police Department, the men also stole bronze pieces from the Joseph Addison Thatcher memorial fountain and sold them as scrap metal to a local business. The stolen pieces from City Park were all returned to Denver Arts & Venues, the company that manages the monuments.

Initially, investigators treated the theft as a bias-motivated crime. That theory was abandoned when they discovered that the crime was not motivated by bias because the pieces were sold as scrap metal.