Man takes pickaxe to Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star
LOS ANGELES: Donald Trump’s star has dimmed in Hollywood, after a suspect with a pickaxe vandalised his plaque on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
It’s the second time vandals have damaged Trump’s star at the tourist site.
ABC7 television cited witnesses as saying a man removed the pickaxe from a guitar case and began swinging it at the brass-rimmed star – one of more than 2,500 embedded in Hollywood’s sidewalks in honour of famous entertainment figures.
Before he was elected president in the November 2016 election, Trump starred as himself in The Apprentice TV reality series.
Los Angeles police confirmed that they were called about 3.30am for a report of vandalism at the star’s location on Hollywood Boulevard.
After bashing the plaque, the suspect called police “and advised he had vandalised Donald Trump’s star”, the Los Angeles Times quoted police Lieutenant Karen Leong as saying.
The police confirmed that the suspect, Austin Mikel Clay, 24, turned himself in and was booked on a charge of felony vandalism.
Trump’s star was targeted once before, in October 2016, when a man dressed as a construction worker defaced it with a sledgehammer and pickaxe, in what was reportedly a protest at Trump’s treatment of women. — AFP