Graffiti Vandals Awarded $6.7 Million for Defacing Building

Thanks to judicial tyranny, you can now be looted for $millions for cleaning up your own vandalized property:

A judge awarded $6.7 million Monday to graffiti artists who sued after dozens of spray-paintings were destroyed on the walls of dilapidated New York warehouse buildings torn down to make room for high-rise luxury residences.

The judge came down extra hard on the property owner for having enough self-respect to refuse to “show remorse” for not preserving the graffiti.

U.S. District Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn said 45 of the 49 paintings were recognized works of art “wrongfully and willfully destroyed” by a remorseless landlord.

The supposed artistic merit of the graffiti is irrelevant in a world where pulling a t-shirt over your head and pretending to be a bear is regarded as art.

Twenty-one aerosol artists had sued the owner of a Long Island City site known as 5Pointz under the Visual Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artists’ rights even if someone else owns the physical artwork. Their graffiti was painted over in 2013, and the buildings were torn down a year later.

Like someone’s house? Scribble on it with a can of spray paint, and declare it to be art. Now the house is yours.

Property rights are the bedrock of liberty. So progressives erode them.

On tips from Dragon’s Lair and Jack Bauer.