MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. — Investigators are trying to find who is responsible for vandalizing a statue of Ponce de Leon in Brevard County overnight.

What You Need To Know

  • Statue was erected to honor possible Ponce de Leon landing site 

  • Vandals spray painted "AIS Murder", a possible reference to a tribe that lived on the Space Coast

  • Similar statues have been vandalized elsewhere in Florida

Beach goers arrived Monday to find the damage. Someone spray painted the words "AIS Murder" on the base, along with bright red streaks along the statue itself.

Officials say the message is aimed at the Spaniard, who many say conquered the land and killed Native Americans like the Ais tribe who lived in what is now the Space Coast.


Investigators believe "AIS Murder" may be related to a tribe that lived on the Space Coast when Ponce de Leon came to Florida. (Brevard County government)

"I received a text message from a concerned resident," said Melbourne's Samantha Nazario, who is part of a group that worked for nearly two decades to get the statue in place. Some historians believe the explorer first landed on that spot, in what would become Florida.

She says whoever defaced the statue is voicing their protest in the wrong way.

"All of our histories are plagued with the blood of someone else and tragedy," Nazario said. "But the point of history is for us to learn from it, and not repeat it."

Nazario's group just dealt with previous controversy about this monument and the park late last year, when the debate over Ponce de Leon landing came up.

County commissioners discussed the possibility of removing the Spanish and Puerto Rican flags, pointing to a UCF study that concluded Ponce de Leon never landed there.

But after Nazario and others told them they were "hiding" Florida's true history, they voted against it.​


County workers clean up the Ponce de Leon statue Monday morning. (Brevard County government)

County workers cleaned up the mess early Monday morning.

Nazario urges people not to go to these extremes.

"I'm all for peaceful protests, but I don't think vandalism is the best way to get our message across," she said.

Another Ponce de Leon statue in St. Augustine was pelted with rotten eggs last week.

Seven people were arrested for vandalizing a statue in Miami back on June 11.