SAN ANTONIO – Crime scene tape once again encircled a large area surrounding the giant but now damaged shiny steel sculpture of Lenin with a tiny Mao balanced on his head.
Investigators with San Antonio Police Department and the San Antonio Arson Bureau were back at the scene Tuesday looking for clues, besides the surveillance video that caught the explosion in the early morning hours of Monday.
So far there’s been no arrest and the motive is apparently unknown.
Each agency referred questions about the investigation to an FBI spokeswoman who said she had nothing to add to Monday’s initial brief statement because of the ongoing investigation.
But passersby, both visitors and locals, in the 300 block of West Commerce along the new San Pedro Creek Culture Park, sounded puzzled as to who or why someone would set off an explosion several months after the sculpture was put on display.
“It is hard to believe that would have happened here,” said Eulalio Galindo. “Why would a statue of Lenin be here in America? But especially here in San Antonio? I don’t know.”
Maria Navarro said the act was “vandalism at its best and not appropriate.”
But she said, “There’s going to be those type of people in the world.”
“It makes no sense,” said Jonathan Frausto.
He said it’s a controversial piece of art, but “this is art.”
Although the Communist leaders depicted were a troubling part of history, Leonor Navarro said, “See it. Learn from it. Don’t make the same mistake. Change it.”
But, she said, “Don’t blow it up.”