A man charged in connection to damaging state Capitol statues is headed to trial after police said they identified him based on his clothes.
During a preliminary hearing Tuesday for 26-year-old Marquon Clark, a Madison Police Department detective testified that surveillance video played a key role in identifying and charging the man for damaging statues on the night of June 23.
Detective Lisa Fahrenbruch testified that Clark was recognized in a surveillance image shared by authorities in connection to the firebombing at the City-County Building.
Protesters have decried the arrest of Clark—who goes by Sire—and others as an attempt by authorities to target activists demonstrating against police brutality.
Clark was kept in the Dane County Jail for weeks on a parole hold before the Dane County District Attorney's Office filed charges against him.
An amended criminal complaint in the case claimed Clark helped pull down the Forward and Hans Christian Heg statueson the Capitol square, contributing to between $60,000 and $95,000 in damage.
Fahrenbruch said that an employee of Wando's Bar & Grill spoke with Clark earlier in the evening and remembered what Clark had worn. Investigators then looked at surveillance of Clark at Wando's the same evening and matched up the clothing with a person seen damaging the statues.
Clark's defense attorney asked the detective if she could see the face of the person in the surveillance images taken near the Capitol. Fahrenbruch said she could not.
The complaint in the case said the person in the surveillance images could be seen wearing a black hoodie with an oval logo on the chest, a red bandanna, light pants and two-tone brown shoes.
Judge John Hyland ruled that there was probable cause to move to trial in the case. A date was not immediately set.
Clark has been named as a person of interestin the firebombing of the City-County Building but has not been charged.
Photo: WKOW