Parts of a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Denver have been stolen

DENVER (AP) — A large Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Denver’s City Park was vandalized, and police are trying to determine if racial bias was involved.

Several pieces of the marble and bronze “I Have a Dream” memorial were stolen sometime Tuesday. The missing pieces include a bronze torch and angel, as well as a bronze panel that depicted Black military veterans, The Denver Post reported.

Vern Howard, chair of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission, told the newspaper that a community member informed him of the vandalism Wednesday morning.

“You can steal. You can take. You can pull. You can hate. You can do everything that you believe necessary to detour the message of Dr. King and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission,” Howard said. “We’re going to continue to march, to honor and to work toward freedom, toward justice, toward the end of racism, toward the end of hatred and the end of discrimination.”

Artist Ed Dwight created the memorial in 2002. It features a bronze statue of King and smaller statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.

The Denver Police Department’s Bias-Motivated Crime Unit is investigating.