Vandals Successfully Replace American Flags Atop Brooklyn Bridge With Big White Banners, Police Baffled

The great American pride, its Stars and Stripes, atop the famed Brooklyn Bridge was replaced by white banners in a daring single night of vandalism.

Two large American flags atop the Brooklyn Bridge, one of New York City’s most heavily secured landmarks, were successfully replaced sometime during the night with white banners that were spotted Tuesday morning fluttering in the wind. Security officials were seen clamoring up the tower to take down the banners and replace them with the American flag. By early afternoon the situation was back to normal, but the police are completely baffled.

Police crime scene and intelligence detectives are currently investigating how the flags were switched out on the famed span that connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. The mystery is quite baffling since there were no reports of suspicious activity, police said. Officers in patrol cars are constantly stationed at both ends of the bridge, which is continuously monitored by surveillance cameras. The 131-year-old bridge is considered a high-profile terrorist target.

The camera footage is now perhaps the only hopeful source of spotting the vandals and secure any loopholes. However, police have indeed spotted five people who were caught on camera in the vicinity just after 3 am, reported The Oregonian.

Police removed the white flags just before noon from poles on the stone supports that hold cables above the bridge. One of the flags, viewed via video, does seem to have faint traces of stars and stripes on it. However, it is as yet unclear as to why the American flags were taken down and replaced with these white banners. Construction workers who first spotted the white banners indicated that the white banners were in fact commercially available American flags, but were bleached white, reported U.S News.

Onlookers and New Yorkers are now both apprehensive and furious at this apparent lack of security and lackluster performance by the Brooklyn’s finest. New Yorkers were questioning how the NYPD could allow vandals to climb the bridge during the middle of the night. Angry Francisco Correa, 29, of Brooklyn summarized the general consensus,

“Aren’t there security cameras everywhere? “How did no one see this? This bridge is the key to our city. That shouldn’t have happened.”

Interestingly, preliminary investigations revealed that vandals managed to blind the flood-lights with aluminum pans. Under cover of the night these vandals managed to quickly climb the two stone towers and replace the flags with white banners.

[Image Credit | James Keivom, Richard Harbus, Anderson/Splash News via NY Daily news]