Charlottesville statue of Robert E. Lee vandalized with anti-Trump graffiti

The statue of Robert E. Lee that was at the center of violent protests in 2017 at a park in Charlottesville, Virginia, was vandalized early Wednesday with an anti-Trump profanity scrawled in white paint.

The Charlottesville Police Department is investigating the incident, and the city's parks and recreation department was cleaning up the monument.

The statue in Market Street Park was defaced with an expletive aimed at President Donald Trump, according to WVIR. In addition, an illegible word was written on the back of the statue, and blue paint was spattered around the base. Part of the fence around the monument was knocked down.

The statue has been vandalized several times in recent years with painted slogans, including the word "BLACK LIVES MATTER" in 2015, “Native Land” in 2017 and “FREDOM” in 2019, according to WVIR.

In 2017, the statue of the Confederate general, which was dedicated in 1924, was ordered removed by the Charlottesville City Council, along with one of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson.

That effort was temporarily blocked by state Judge Richard Moore.

In May, in response to a lawsuit aimed at barring the statue's removal, Moore ruled that the Lee and Jackson statues were protected under a Virginia law that makes it illegal for local municipalities to remove war monuments without permission from the state.

"While some people obviously see Lee and Jackson as symbols of white supremacy, others see them as brilliant military tacticians or complex leaders in a difficult time ... and do not think of white supremacy at all and certainly do not believe in, accept, or believe in such," Moore wrote in his decision. "In either event, the statues to them under the undisputed facts of this case still are monuments and memorials to them, as veterans of the Civil War."

The judge, who allowed the council to rename the park from Robert E. Lee Park to Market Street Park, said his ruling does not guarantee that the plaintiffs will win if the lawsuit goes to trial.

In August 2017, during a Unite The Right rally, clashes broke out between groups supporting the statue, including white supremacists and demonstrators shouting "Jews will not replace us" and counterprotesters.

After police dispersed the crowd, one protester – Heather Heyer – was struck and killed by a neo-Nazi who rammed his car into a group of counterdemonstrators.

The driver, James Field Jr., was sentenced in July to life in prison for Heyer's murder. He was also convicted of federal hate crimes.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Charlottesville: Robert E. Lee statue vandalized with Trump graffiti