Police are investigating after a man (pictured) allegedly urinated on flags at a veteran’s cemetery in Boston on Monday
Police are investigating after a man allegedly urinated on American flags at a veteran’s cemetery in Boston on Monday.
Somerville man George Gatteny said a man, believed to be in his early to mid-20s, entered the cemetery, leaving a woman at the gate to stand guard, pulled four flags from a statue and threw them on the ground.
‘What I saw him do next pushed me to a point where I said to myself “enough”,’ Gatteny said in a Facebook post.
‘The guy started urinating on the flags.’
Gatteny, who said until this point he’d been sitting in traffic just outside the cemetery, pulled over and approached them, yelling for the man to stop.
He says the unidentified man did stop urinating, but did not acknowledge him. ‘He pulled up his pants and started walking out of the memorial,’ Gatteny explained.
The real estate agent said he followed the pair, determined to see them face some kind of consequence.
‘Both of them walked up Broadway laughing. I walked behind them for a while telling everyone I passed what they did,’ he said.
Gatteny returned to the statue soon after to take stock of what had happened, and assess any damage done.
The man was spotted pulling four flags from a memorial, throwing them on the ground and dropping his pants by George Gatteny, who was sitting in traffic close by at the time (pictured: the flags after the alleged offender had left)
The man had taken the flags from a memorial (right) at the Somerville Veterans Memorial Cemetery (left)
On the ground, next to the statue, were four flags, surrounded by a liquid.
At this point, Gatteny said he was thanked for putting a stop to the younger man’s desecration of the memorial.
‘An older gentleman came over and thanked me for taking a stand. He told me he has two friends buried there,’ he wrote.
Gatteny has since reported the young man to police, who say they are investigating, and pictures of him have been shared across the world.
‘What possible reason could they have for desecrating a WW2 Memorial,’ Gatteny asked.
‘There are consequences for our actions. They probably thought no [one] would do anything. They were WRONG!’
A veteran’s Facebook group also released a statement, with the page’s moderator saying the vandalism: ‘broke my heart’, and they were ‘sickened that someone would desecrate and defile such a hallowed and sacred place.
‘This cemetery contains the remains of heroes killed in action from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and one hero who died in the Beirut bombing in 1982.’
Gatteny said the man had a female friend (pictured) stand watch while he desecrated the memorial