Arrest for defacing Parkland memorial

A Florida man has been charged with leaving dead animals on three separate occasions at a memorial for the 17 victims of the Parkland school massacre, officials said.

Robert Mondragon, 29, is being held without bail on three felony charges of defacing a monument for his alleged actions outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and for violating probation on an earlier conviction for battery and indecent exposure.

Broward County sheriff ’s investigators said on the night of July 20, Mondragon put a dead, cut open duck on the bench that is part of the memorial garden outside the school commemorating the victims of the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre. The next night, Mondragon left a dead raccoon on the bench and on July 31 he left a dead opossum, investigators said.

After he was identified as a suspect, a deputy pulled him over and found blood and feathers in his car. State records show that in 2018, authorities seized guns from Mondragon under the state’s red flag law. The law, adopted after the Parkland shootings, allows law enforcement to seek a judge’s permission to seize firearms from people who can be shown to be a danger to themselves or others.