Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Destruction Leads to Arrest

President Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star has been vandalized for the second time.

On Wednesday morning, a man wielding a pickaxe destroyed the President’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, leaving nothing more than rubble and debris scattered around the area.

According to NBC Los Angeles, authorities responded to the scene at the star’s location on Hollywood Boulevard near Highland Avenue after receiving a call at around 3:30 a.m. PT, though by the time they arrived the suspect had fled the scene, leaving behind only a pile of rubble and the pickaxe, which he had reportedly concealed in a guitar case.

“I just seen [sic] a guy going to town on, I guess, the ground or whatever,” eyewitness Patricia Cox told KCAL/KCBS. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

It is believed that the suspect was the one to call Beverly Hills Police and report the crime. He has since turned himself in to Beverly Hills police, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. His identity has not yet been released.

NBC Los Angeles reporter Jonathan Gonzalez shared pictures of what the star had looked like prior to being destroyed and what was left of it following the Wednesday morning incident.

“People are now taking pieces of the rubble from President Trump’s destroyed star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,” NBC LA reporter Sydney Kalich reported.

This is not the first time that Trump’s star, which he received in 2007 during his run on NBC’s The Apprentice, has been vandalized. In October of 2016, James Lambert Otis, dressed as a construction worker, used a pickaxe and sledgehammer to destroy the star. Otis fled the scene but was later taken into custody by police, claiming that he was planning to extract the star in order to auction it off to raise money for the women who accused Trump of sexual assault.

Otis pleaded no contest to felony vandalism and was sentenced to three years of probation, 20 days of community service and a $4,400 fine.

In July 2016, a protester constructed a 6-inch high concrete wall with razor wire around the star to represent Trump’s proposed border wall.

In 2017, the star was defaced when somebody used permanent marker to write “F– Trump” across it.