The Ramona Quimby Statue Was Defaced with Swastikas—And Cleaned—Twice This Week

Reports emerged Wednesday afternoon of hateful graffiti on two of Portland's most beloved statues.

Vandals had graffitied swastikas onto Beverly Cleary's children's book characters Ramona Quimby's forehead and Henry Huggins' forehead and jacket in Grant Park in Northeast Portland, according to KGW-TV.

The graffiti was promptly removed last night.

According to the Office of Neighborhood Involvement Graffiti Abatement Program, which removes graffiti in the city of Portland, that incident occurred on Tuesday. By yesterday evening, the graffiti was removed.

But that wasn't the only graffiti smeared on the statues this week.

On Sunday night, someone graffitied the statues with swastikas. Regional Arts and Culture Council, which owns the statues, had the graffiti cleaned up the next day.

"The amount of hate graffiti and swastika graffiti we see reported is a lot more than is reported in the news," says Juliette Muracchioli, Graffiti Abatement Program Coordinator. "We get those reports fairly often. It's disturbing every time."

Muracchioli says graffiti is cleaned by three different agencies: The Office of Neighborhood Involvement, Portland Parks and Recreation and Regional Arts and Culture Council, depending on where the tagged wall or statue is. But in the case of hate speech, whoever received the report will act to remove it immediately.

"In the case of hate graffiti, if we get those reports, I send a contractor out. It's the fastest way," she says. "Across the board, as soon as we hear about it, it's absolutely priority one." She says the graffiti usually get taken care of within the hour.

Related: A Portland Statue of Ramona Quimby Was Defaced in March With a Swastika—the Latest in a Wave of "Hate Graffiti"

This isn't the first time the statues have been defaced.

Last March, the statues were tagged with swastikas, before being covered with competing graffiti: a five-pointed star on Ramona's forehead and "antifa" on Henry's. Since November 1, 2016, the Office of Neighborhood Involvement had catalogued 24 instances of tagged swastikas to clean up.

"Those statues tend to get tagged a lot. Our priority is to get it cleaned up," says Muracchioli.