The appearance of a 10-foot-tall steel monolith in Atascadero’s Stadium Park may have been mysterious, but it was far from sinister.
For a day after its discovery Wednesday, curious locals hiked up to check out the new arrival on Pine Mountain. And then, overnight, it was gone.
The revelation that the culprits drove five hours from Southern California to tear it down, live-streaming the trek, has angered Central Coast residents.
Video shows the four young men chanting “Christ is king” as they tear down the monolith and replace it with a plywood cross. They also made racist and anti-immigrant statements. The video has been removed from the DLive.tv platform; an excerpt has been posted by Vice.com.
In a statement Thursday, Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno said: “We are upset that these young men felt the need to drive 5 hours to come into our community and vandalize the Monolith. The Monolith was something unique and fun in an otherwise stressful time.”
An editorial by the San Luis Obispo Tribune took an angrier tone, calling the men “racist-mouthed punks,” “nasty” and “desperate for attention.”
It encouraged readers to contact Atascadero police with any information on the culprits’ identity. “Don’t let these idiots get away with sneaking in under cover of night, outrageously destroying a playful work of art that obviously took effort and ingenuity to create and put in place,” the editorial said.
Commenters on social media mourned the removal of the monolith, with one observing that the act was not in line with the slogan that frequently shows up in official city communication: “Be safe. Be calm. Be kind.”
The monolith was the third to appear in the past couple of weeks. The first, in the Utah desert, drew crowds of people and was removed last week by men who objected to the “trashing” of public lands. The second, on a hill in Romania, was removed by parties unknown.
Clues as to the identity of the men in the Atascadero video can be relayed to the Atascadero Police Department at (805) 461-5051.
