If the group that put up the monument followed customary practice, the monument was given to the county at its dedication way back when and thus became public property.
Defacing/damaging public property is a crime. I guess defacing it also could be a hate crime if the intent was to intimidate. However, I’m not sure if the message “Black Lives Matter” conveys a threat or enough of an overt threat to be considered intimidation.
The monument has value and artistic merit. The question that Montgomery County, MD (now (and for some time preceding) a majority black county) has to solve is what to do with it. Entombing it (as has been done) at least removes the focus of aggravation and protects the monument from further damage until a measured and well thought out solution can be arrived at.
In my personal opinion, I think it will be crated and removed to be placed in storage in some county warehouse or at the back of some county vehicle parking lot. Maybe it will, as President Obama said, end up in a museum. Perhaps, in time, such monuments will be sent from all over the “New South” to some central location to create some great Confederate monument statuary garden. Stone Mountain?
thanks for the thoughtful remarks.