Off-duty officer caught on camera washing away children’s Black Lives Matter messages

An off-duty police officer was caught in the act of erasing Black Lives Matter messages written in chalk by children.

The man was filmed washing away the messages written by students at Hillcrest Elementary School in Catonsville, Md.

“I don’t understand why they are washing it away,” student Stanley Simonsen said. “It’s just a quiet protest, kind of.”

After schools closed in March, students started drawing chalk messages on the building about how much they loved school and supported their teachers. Following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, Gabe Plusen wrote a Black Lives Matter message on the building in support of his sister, who will be going there next year for kindergarten.

“With all that’s going on right now, I thought Catonsville need to have change,” Plusen said. “And I wanted make it better for her and any other black person that is coming into the school and in the community.”

Police said an off-duty officer from another jurisdiction kept coming and washing the messages away.

“Makes me feel kind of angry, because we worked really hard on this,” former student Noah Rice said. “I don’t get why they have a problem with it.”

However, the officer’s actions have only inspired the students to create more messages.

“More people are coming back every time and we are writing more, so the whole school is covered,” another former student, Caen Plusen, said.

Parents say the erasure of the kids’ Black Lives Matter messages has become a teachable moment. They are using it to create conversations about history, political statements and the value of messages.

“I think the message that we send to them, when they put messages of love … and say to them they have to take it down, that is crushing for children,” parent Michelle Duberry said.

School officials said they support the messages, and the students vow that they will write new messages if theirs get erased.