Women who painted over NYC Black Lives Matter mural identified as right-wing gadflies
NEW YORK — Two women charged with splashing paint over the Black Lives Matter mural in front of Manhattan’s Trump Tower were identified Sunday as attention-seeking anti-abortion protesters who have pulled similar stunts before.
Bevelyn Beatty, 29, and Edmee Chavannes, 39, who live together on Staten Island, were arrested Saturday after they allegedly started to smear black paint over the bright yellow lettering of the mural on Fifth Avenue in Midtown.
“Refund the police,” the two women shouted as they splashed the paint. “Jesus matters! We will never support Black Lives Matter!”
Both women were charged with criminal mischief and released pending a future court date.
“We are taking our country back NOW!” a statement posted on the Facebook page of their At The Well Ministries reads.
In the statement they claim to have been treated like “royalty” by cops after their arrest.
“The police expressed their HIGH APPRECIATION for what Bevelyn and Edmee stood up for today,” the statement says. “They expressed their concerns and fears for their city. They are in fear for the sake of NYC and voiced that they need MORE people like them to help and stand up for what is RIGHT!”
A cop responding to their vandalism slipped and fell in the wet paint — loudly thumping his shoulder and head on the pavement, video of the incident shows.
“The police officer that slipped and fell in the paint is doing OKAY,” the statement on their Facebook page reads. “He had a hard fall but is doing very well and fine.”
The women disagree with Black Lives Matter because the racial justice protesters do not necessarily oppose abortion.
“They’re fraudulent hypocrites … and I believe all lives matter because God created them,” Beatty told Fox News last month.
The pair were arrested last month for protesting outside Planned Parenthood’s New York headquarters.
They were also charged with disorderly conduct when they disrupted a council meeting in a suburb of Fort Myers, Florida.
The duo also took an unwelcome trip to Kentucky to attend an Easter Sunday service held in defiance of the governor’s April coronavirus stay-at-home order.
The Black Lives Matter mural was painted on the famed avenue over the bitter objections of President Donald Trump, who called Black Lives Matter a hate group. It’s been vandalized three times in the past week.
Similar murals have been painted in Washington and in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
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