A 21-year-old man broke into the Dallas Museum of Art “by force” shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday and destroyed $5 million worth of Greek antiquities, according to various US media reports. Brian Hernandez was arrested and is charged with criminal mischief. According to what he told the police, he did it because he was “angry at his girl.”
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) reports in a statement that the man was not armed and no one was injured. Museum security responded immediately and Dallas Police took the individual into custody at the scene.
“It was an isolated incident perpetrated by an individual acting alone, whose intention was not the theft of works of art or any object exhibited in the museum.
However, some works of art were damaged and we are still in the process of assessing the extent of the damage.”
“He was someone who seemed to be angry, and his purpose was to release his anger by breaking anything he could find made of glass,” Agustín Arteaga, director of the museum, told Fox4 News television. “It was just his anger that led that person to do what he did,” he added.
The girl Hernandez was mad at doesn’t work at the museum. Arteaga assured that they have no connection with her.
Among the destroyed objects is an amphora from the 6th century BC. and a pyx dating to 450 B.C.
The Museum, which said it was “devastated” by the incident, opened to the public the following day, although some permanent collection galleries remain closed due to the ongoing investigation.
The event took place just a few days after a young man dressed as a woman who sneaked into the Louvre Museum in a wheelchair threw a cake at Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Fortunately, the cake crashed into the glass that protects this iconic work of art, which did not suffer any damage. «Think of the earth, there are people who are destroying the Earth (…) To the artists, think of the Earth. That’s why I’ve done it. Think of the planet », the attacker shouted to justify his action.
