Dozens of American flags initially placed outside the Monrovia Public Library in California as a tribute to fallen soldiers for Monday’s Memorial Day were found upside down on Friday, one day after former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City.
NewsNation affiliate KTLA’s Jennifer McGraw said it was clear that zip ties had to be cut in order to flip each of the flags.
“This was no easy task,” McGraw said.
McGraw spoke to Monrovia’s city manager, who said a veteran’s picnic was scheduled outside the library for Saturday. McGraw was told that no crimes appeared to have been committed.
It’s not immediately clear who flipped the flags outside the library, which is owned and operated by the city of Monrovia.
The flags were restored to their original state by 9 a.m. Friday.
The upside-down flag has long represented a “signal of dire distress,” according to the U.S. flag code, but has been adopted by election-deniers and conspiracy theorists in recent years.
Trump supporters flocked to social media on Thursday with photos of an upside-down flag after the former president was convicted on 34 felony counts in connection to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green posted an image of a flag in distress to X, formerly Twitter, and later claimed that Democrats were “destroying our justice system and our freedoms” after the non-partisan jury convicted Trump.
The upside-down flag has made waves through the Supreme Court in recent weeks as Justice Samuel Alito said he won’t recuse himself from an upcoming case surrounding the events at the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6, 2021.
That same year, an inverted flag was flown at a house owned by Alito. He claimed it was placed upside down by his wife, without his knowledge.