“I felt like I needed to paint this for the people,” said VEW — a twenty-something graffiti artist from New York City — about the recent Michael Brown tribute he did on a freight train in Brooklyn.
While the rest of the country was stuffing its face on Thanksgiving, he snuck into the Bay Ridge Branch freight yard and spray painted “Police State” on a benched boxcar, along with a representation of the the Constitution on fire and other visuals.
VEW, whose prolific public works have landed him at the top of the NYPD’s vandal squad list, says it took about an hour and a half and was well worth it. “Graffiti is and always will be part of any revolution, so this is my cross-country message on a freight train,” he said. “The police state is here.”
(Photos: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork)
