• The Washington Monument was vandalized with red paint on Tuesday night.
• The area around base of the monument was closed to allow conservators to work on repairs.
• National Park Service conservators worked on the monument between 1934 and 2019.

According to police, a man was arrested late Tuesday after the Washington Monument was vandalised with red paint.

The suspect was apprehended, according to a tweet from the United States Park Police. It was unclear whether he would face charges right away.

Following the incident, the area around the Washington Monument’s base was temporarily closed as National Park Service conservators worked to restore the statue.

The base of the monument was smeared with red paint, along with the words: “Have you been f——- by this… Gov says tough s—-.”

The monument was given to the National Park Service in 1933, with the first restoration of the structure beginning in 1934 as a Depression-era public works project.

Additional restoration work was done in 1964, as well as from 1998 to 2001 and 2011 to 2014 to repair damage caused by an earthquake. From 2016 to 2019, it also underwent restoration work to modernise its elevator.

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