COBB COUNTY, Ga — A special park bench dedicated to the memory of George Floyd is missing it’s plaque and one for Breonna Taylor appears to have been tampered with.
The bench plaques are at Taylor-Brawner park in Smyrna.
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“They are very important to the legacy of what happened, to never forget,” said Monica Langley who is lives in Smyrna.
A family came up with the idea to create special bench plaques for Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, in 2020.
“As we were riding around and we saw it, it was just like wow this is great,” said Langley.
Langley was with her son when she saw the plaques for the first time.
“He sat down and we pulled out the camera to take pictures,” said Langley.
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But Langley is having trouble walking through the park after learning about what happened to George Floyds plaque and Breonna Taylors plaque.
“Walking today, I didn’t even want to look at it because it made me emotional that someone thought it was ok to erase that plaque,” said Langley.
Floyds plaque is gone, a silver plate that it was attached to is still visible.
“I just don’t know how they were able to get it off. You can see the scrapes. It took some effort,” said Langley.
The top of Breonna Taylor’s plaque appears to be tampered with.
“It’s metal and it’s bent, it takes a lot of strength to do that. They really tried to get if off,” said Langley.
City officials say they received an email about the plaques Thursday afternoon around 3:00 p.m. and they aren’t sure what happened.
“How would they not know about this? You have groundskeepers to keep this park beautiful and I feel like someone had to have seen it before yesterday,” said Langley.
Langley says she jumped into action after she received information about the plaques on Thursday Langley says she later learned that George Floyd’s plaque had been missing since September of 2022. City officials say they weren’t made aware of the problem until Thursday. They also said new plaques for Floyd and Taylor were ordered Friday morning and should be replaced early next week.
Langley says she hopes this doesn’t happen again.
There aren’t cameras at the park but city officials say they will have their crews monitor the plaques from time to time.
The Smyrna Police department says it wasn’t made aware of the plaques and a report wasn’t filed.
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