Pine tar splattered on base of J.E.B. Stuart statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond

A contractor hired to clean the statue said pine tar was splattered on the Confederate monument. The worker with the company Envirowash said the tar will come off.

Richmond police said it appeared two cans of pine tar had been dumped on the statue. Police said workers with the Department of Public Works are on the scene and that the tar should be cleaned up by the end of the day.

The vandalism comes as places across the nation, including Richmond, decide whether to remove or add context to Confederate monuments in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville earlier this month.

Police said they have increased patrols around Monument Avenue.

The statue of the Confederate general stands where Lombardy Street crosses Monument Avenue.

The picturesque thoroughfare, a National Historic Landmark District, also features statues of Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Last year, three statues on Monument Avenue were tagged with graffiti after the election of President Donald Trump. The message “Your vote was a hate crime” was written in red spray paint on monuments to Davis and oceanographer Maury. The statue of Lee was vandalized as well, with an expletive directed at Trump spray-painted on it and the letters “KKK.”

The statue of Christopher Columbus in Byrd Park also was vandalized last year. Red paint was splattered on the statue and poured on the base. The statue was also defaced with spray paint in 2015.

In July 2015, Joseph Weindl, 39, of Richmond, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for defacing the Davis statue. The incident involving Weindl came shortly after someone had spray-painted “Black Lives Matter” on the base of the statue.

Also in 2015, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Libby Hill Park was defaced with spray paint.

In 2014, the Stuart statue was painted with a cryptic anti-work message, accompanied by what appeared to be a Soviet hammer and sickle.

In 2012, the Lee statue was defaced with “five-O.”