How the arrest unfolded
Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was arrested Friday near the Lincoln Reflecting Pool after park police said he damaged government property. Independent journalist Emily Miller reported that a man was seen jumping into the pool and cutting out a “huge piece” of sealant. Miller also posted video of a man being detained by Park Police. According to the reporting, officers said Hearn, 67, had grabbed a hose that National Park Service workers were using to clear algae. In Washington, where every public repair seems to arrive with a press release and leave with a lawyer, the details still matter because the pool sits beside a major national memorial and is not supposed to double as a roadside attraction for trouble.
Hearn says he did not vandalize anything
Hearn told The Washington Post that he had just finished a 52-mile bike ride when he stopped to look at the refurbished pool. He said he noticed a loose piece of the new liner and reached in to feel it, but denied ripping or peeling anything away. “I didn’t vandalize anything,” he said. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything.” He also denied touching the hose, though he said his bike tire may have brushed it. Park police arrested him on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property, and he is scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on July 9. The case now rests on a familiar modern question: what one witness calls curiosity, another calls a crime, and a third turns into content before the sun goes down.
A strange case gets even stranger
Hearn is not just any man in biking gear. He competed for the United States in three Summer Olympics as a canoe slalom athlete, finishing 11th in Barcelona in 1992, ninth in Atlanta in 1996, and 12th in Sydney in 2000. Reports also said he was a major figure in the sport in the 1980s and 1990s and won multiple world championship medals. Meanwhile, authorities were also looking at vandalism on the sealant that appeared to read “86 47.” That is the kind of extra twist only a public agency could make look normal: first the cleanup, then the arrest, then the explanation, and finally the part where everyone pretends the tape line on the pool floor is a matter of great national urgency.
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