Courtney Fallon, a 33-year-old from Greenpoint, put blue coloring on the Charging Bull. The caption posted with the photo on Twitter reads: “Be bull-headed in the face of climate change denial and demand action now.” (Draw The Blue Line via Twitter)
Sept. 18, 2017 By Nathaly Pesantez
A Greenpoint woman has been charged with vandalizing Wall Street’s Charging Bull with a blue paint mixture late last week.
Courtney Fallon, a 33-year-old woman from Greenpoint, was identified by the New York Daily News as the vandal behind the Sept. 14 incident.
Fallon was arrested at 12:30pm on Sept. 15, court documents reveal. She appeared before the New York Criminal Court on the same day, where she was charged with one count of criminal mischief, and one count of making graffiti.
Fallon told the news outlet that she threw a mix of corn oil and chalk to the bull’s head at around 6 a.m. to protest rising sea levels, and hoped that the statement would reach the United Nations in time for Paris Accord talks.
Fallon also draped a blue ribbon over the “Fearless Girl” statue in front of the Charging Bull. Police had cleaned the bull’s head by 9 a.m. Thursday, according to the Daily News.
A blue ribbon draped over the “Fearless Girl” statue in the Financial District. The caption accompanying the photo, posted by Draw The Blue Line on Twitter, reads: “Climate change makes me fearful – nevertheless, we must persist.”
The act was part of a “Draw the Blue Line” protest, a collective that formed in response to President Trump’s June 1 statement on withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. Fallon, the organizer of the “collaborative public art project”, said she chose corn oil and chalk because “they wouldn’t cause any harm to the ‘Charging Bull’ sculpture” in a Sept. 15 statement.
“Nothing compared to the havoc that salt water will cause when the Atlantic floods FIDI [Financial District],” reads part of a Sept. 14 tweet sent by the Draw The Blue Line account.
But Fallon changed her mind when Eric Phillips, press secretary for Mayor Bill de Blasio, responded to the tweet on Sept. 14 and said, “Corn oil and salt on a bull will not prevent FiDi’s drowning.”
“You are absolutely right,” Fallon tweeted back on Sept. 15. “It was a foolish choice and completely detracts from my message.”
Fallon is due back in court on Oct. 27.
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