American flags found vandalized on Canton overpass

Several American flags were found vandalized on Canton overpass after being spray-painted with various symbols, with the pavement also tagged with political statements.

Henry Krueger, Jr. took video Thursday night after finding the flags he hung on the Canton bridge vandalized, and said he was upset and disgusted about the situation.

"It pissed me off, really," Krueger, Jr. said. "That's why I took the video. I was upset."

Symbols of anarchy and anti-fascism, among others, were spray-painted in red on the flags on the Green Lodge Street overpass above I-95, with various words and phrases seen beside them.

"The defilement of the flag. They're not up there for a political purpose," Kreuger, Jr. said. "It's up there for the men and women that have served and just as a nice gesture for the country, and just to deface them like that was upsetting."

Krueger, Jr., his father and friends hang the flags before each Memorial Day weekend, and Krueger, Jr. was off work early Thursday when he noticed that some flags were tattered.

As he started to remove them, he saw the spray paint.

"I started doing the ones on the 138 bridge in Canton first," Krueger, Jr. said. "Then, I worked my way to Green Lodge, and that's where I noticed the ones that had been tagged."

Disgusted, he took the flags to the Canton American Legion, where they'll be burned later in the year to dispose of them properly.

Krueger, Jr. said he isn't sure who would do this, but he wishes anyone who feels the need to express themselves would keep the American flag out of it.

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"I don't think very highly of them, for sure," Krueger, Jr. said. "I don't know if they think very highly of themselves. It's pretty pathetic, if you ask me. The flag itself should be sacred in its own right."

Canton Police visited the location of the vandalism, but said they're not investigating a crime because they didn't receive a report from Krueger, Jr. or find those flags vandalized themselves.

Because of the weather beating up the flags, Krueger won't replace them just yet, but said they will be back before Memorial Day.

Cox Media Group