If you are going to commit a felony, you would think a three-time Olympian would at least make it dramatic. Instead, 67-year-old David Hearn of Bethesda, Maryland, a former canoe slalom racer who represented the United States in three Olympic Games, was indicted on a single felony count of destruction of property for allegedly pulling up about two square feet of sealant from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Two square feet. That is roughly the size of a bathroom floor tile. As Trending Politics News reported, the grand jury returned the indictment on Thursday, July 2, upgrading an earlier misdemeanor charge.
Here is the backstory. The Reflecting Pool has been undergoing a roughly $16 million renovation ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary, which is the kind of project where the budget alone should guarantee everything goes smoothly. Naturally, it has not. The pool was already dealing with algae blooms and a new coating that was peeling in places before Hearn allegedly got involved. Fencing, National Guard troops, and U.S. Park Police patrols were already in place because other people had previously vandalized the site, resulting in about six misdemeanor arrests.
On June 19, according to prosecutors and D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, Hearn reached into the pool and "forcefully and violently" ripped up recently installed sealant on the bottom liner with both hands, causing more than $1,000 in damage. Pirro said the case has "tremendous evidence."
Hearn tells a very different story. He says he was on a long bicycle ride, stopped out of curiosity about the algae and the peeling blue coating, reached down, and briefly touched a loose, flapping piece of material that was already partially detached. He described the material as feeling "very rubbery" and said he let go after a park worker told him to stop. He insists he did not remove, rip, tear, break, destroy, or harm any part of the pool.
So either we have a rogue Olympian launching a one-man campaign of infrastructure destruction, or we have a curious retiree who poked a piece of liner that was already coming off a $16 million pool that was already falling apart on its own. Depending on which version you believe, this is either a serious crime or the most expensive game of "please don't touch that" in American history.
President Donald Trump had previously called incidents at the pool vandalism and referenced multiple arrests, while also making unsubstantiated claims about other forms of tampering like fertilizer dumping and slashing with a box cutter.
Hearn was detained for roughly five hours after the incident. He says he was not read his Miranda rights, was not allowed phone calls, and was not told the specific charges against him during detention. His legal team, which includes attorneys from the Democracy Defenders Fund such as Norm Eisen and Mary Dohrmann along with Joshua Kolb, called the charges "outrageous and should be alarming to every American" and characterized the prosecution as a misuse of government power based on a "concocted narrative."
No formal plea has been entered. Hearn says he has received offers of pro bono legal support and plans to fight the charges vigorously. One thing is certain: this man navigated Olympic whitewater rapids three times, and now his toughest challenge might be a piece of loose pool liner.
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