Vandalism decrying ‘stolen land’ discovered throughout Glenwood Springs on Thanksgiving

A spate of “stolen land”-themed graffiti was discovered throughout several locations in Glenwood Springs on Thursday and Friday, a Glenwood Springs police officer said.

“All of it seems to have been done by the same party, with the same genre of tagging,” Glenwood Springs Police Officer Logann Crawford said.

The first report of graffiti was received at 10:38 p.m. Thursday, when a Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department patrol vehicle was discovered vandalized with spray paint in the 1000 block of Pitkin Avenue.

Throughout the rest of the night and into Friday morning, Crawford said similar acts of vandalism were discovered behind the Garfield County Detention Center, on storefronts in the Glenwood Meadows area and underneath an Interstate 70 overpass.

In addition to the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office vehicle, vandalism was discovered on a Glenwood Springs Police Department patrol vehicle, Crawford said.

Though no one is yet identified, surveillance footage captured at the detention center and local police department appear to reveal at least two suspects.

Being it’s the holiday weekend, Crawford said suspects could be identified as early as next week.

Not an isolated incident, reports of “stolen land” graffiti have occurred throughout the nation in recent memory. Several sources say the politically influenced theme was conceived as an internet meme in 2018. Prior to the western expansion of the United States in the 1800s, the Roaring Fork Valley was inhabited by the Ute Indian Tribe, native people who were pushed out after the U.S. government opened the area to settlement in 1880, according to Visit Glenwood Springs.

Reporter Ray K. Erku can be reached at 612-423-5273 or rerku@postindependent.com