Jonathan Andrew Tijerina, 31, was arrested Monday evening after spray-painting the 9/11 Memorial Reflecting Pool in broad daylight, police said New York.
The red markings spelled out “juststopkillingkids.com” across several panels of the North Tower reflecting pool, covering the engraved names of dozens of victims from the September 11, 2001 terror attack. Tijerina filmed himself pulling a spray can from his bag and carrying out the act, then posted the footage to Instagram.
“My name is Jon Tijerina and I’ve just spray-painted ‘just stop killing kids’ on the 9/11 Memorial,” Tijerina said in the self-recorded video.
He now faces charges of criminal mischief and making graffiti. Police said the damage exceeded $2,500. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum confirmed it had removed the paint and restored the site.
“The 9/11 Memorial is a sacred place of reflection at the heart of a rebuilt World Trade Center that honors the 2,983 victims killed in the September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 terrorist attacks. Yesterday’s brief incident was swiftly addressed by security staff and law enforcement, and the impacted area was immediately restored to its commemorative state,” a spokesperson said New York.
Tijerina’s website frames “nonviolent civil resistance” as the path to changing laws and society. The site lays out two demands under the banner “Just Stop Killing Kids”: universal background checks and a national gun registry.
“We have two specific, achievable demands. Both have majority public support. Both already exist in other high-income countries. Neither requires repealing the Second Amendment. We are not asking for the impossible — we are asking for what every other wealthy democracy already has,” the website states.
An organization post attributed to Tijerina promoted his arrest as a calculated move to pressure national and city leaders. “On October 26, Jon Tijerina was arrested for spraying red paint on Freedom Tower in NYC. He is demanding that Trump and Mamdani enforce common-sense, highly popular demands with respect to guns such as Universal Background Checks and a National Gun Registry,” the group wrote.
Tijerina pointed to the mass shooting following the Florida A&M homecoming football game as motivation for the memorial vandalism. He had also recently completed a seven-day fast demanding 2 million affordable housing units in New York City within five years, but complained Monday that the protest drew no attention.
The 9/11 Memorial sits at the footprint of the twin towers in Lower Manhattan, bearing the names of nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The reflecting pools occupy the exact outlines of the fallen towers, with water cascading down into central voids.