Bit player Micah Beals, also credited as Micah Femia, has been a face in the crowd of a couple of TV shows—Parks and Recreation and CSI: NY—but his arrest for allegedly vandalizing the George Floyd statue in New York City will undoubtedly be his biggest role yet.
Beals, 37, was charged Thursday with second-degree criminal mischief, the NYPD’s Hate Crimes division wrote on Twitter.
Beals has also appeared in some commercials and is slightly more well-known for his role in the film Pop Star. On Oct. 3, he showed up in New York’s Union Square Park in a dark green jacket and black shorts, riding a skateboard, and threw silver paint on the bronze statue dedicated to Floyd, whose murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last year galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement around the globe.
The monument, part of the “See Justice” exhibition created by artist Chris Carnabuci, includes statues of Breonna Taylor and John Lewis. All three were originally on display on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn until the Floyd statue was vandalized with black paint and a white supremacist logo in June, according to the Associated Press. All three were then moved to Union Square. No one has been arrested in connection with that incident.
“It’s incredibly disappointing how the statues were defaced in such a short amount of time, and it just goes to show you how far we still have to go to reach our goal of unity,” Floyd’s brother Terrence Floyd told TMZ, “The hate is still real. … I want him to get what he deserves, but then I also want him to heal. Come over here and understand that we are not animals. We do not hate you. I walk around here, I could be hating police officers, but I don’t hate the police officers. I just know that there are bad apples in law enforcement, but all police officers are not bad.”
“Today was tough, but the beauty of today was that when we arrived to refurbish the statue, we found community members and allies already hard at work, out of their own goodwill, scrubbing and working to honor the integrity of the art and the power of the subject. People traveled after hearing about the vandalism just to assist. Thank you for stepping in, stepping up, and showing that together we are stronger than hate,” Carnabuci wrote on Instagram.
In a glimmer of hope, a group of strangers decided to work together to clean and restore the statue.
According to New York state law, second-degree criminal mischief is a class D felony. The law states, “A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the second degree when with intent to damage property of another person, and having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he damages property of another person in an amount exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars.” A class D felony carries a potential sentence of up to seven years in prison.
But Beals’ real role was played when he violated his curfew and joined his white brothers in Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, where he was arrested under his stage name, Micah Feria, along with seven others from Michigan on Jan. 6.
His arrests date back to 2002, and cross the nation: Michigan, California, and Washington state, according to reporting by Heavy.com. His charges include everything from malicious destruction of property to driving without a valid license to giving false information to a police officer.
So, now the little-known Z-list actor gets his 15 minutes of fame. Here’s to hoping he gets a lot more than that in jail time.
Beals, 37, was charged Thursday with second-degree criminal mischief, the NYPD’s Hate Crimes division wrote on Twitter.
Beals has also appeared in some commercials and is slightly more well-known for his role in the film Pop Star. On Oct. 3, he showed up in New York’s Union Square Park in a dark green jacket and black shorts, riding a skateboard, and threw silver paint on the bronze statue dedicated to Floyd, whose murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin last year galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement around the globe.
ARREST UPDATE for George Floyd Statue vandalism. Arrested: Beals, Micah Male, 37 Manhattan Charges: Criminal Mischief 2nd @NYPDShea @NYPDDetectives @NYPDnews @NYPD13Pct @NYCParks @NYPDPBMS https://t.co/Kf8brfJnTs
— NYPD Hate Crimes (@NYPDHateCrimes) October 25, 2021
The monument, part of the “See Justice” exhibition created by artist Chris Carnabuci, includes statues of Breonna Taylor and John Lewis. All three were originally on display on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn until the Floyd statue was vandalized with black paint and a white supremacist logo in June, according to the Associated Press. All three were then moved to Union Square. No one has been arrested in connection with that incident.
“It’s incredibly disappointing how the statues were defaced in such a short amount of time, and it just goes to show you how far we still have to go to reach our goal of unity,” Floyd’s brother Terrence Floyd told TMZ, “The hate is still real. … I want him to get what he deserves, but then I also want him to heal. Come over here and understand that we are not animals. We do not hate you. I walk around here, I could be hating police officers, but I don’t hate the police officers. I just know that there are bad apples in law enforcement, but all police officers are not bad.”
“Today was tough, but the beauty of today was that when we arrived to refurbish the statue, we found community members and allies already hard at work, out of their own goodwill, scrubbing and working to honor the integrity of the art and the power of the subject. People traveled after hearing about the vandalism just to assist. Thank you for stepping in, stepping up, and showing that together we are stronger than hate,” Carnabuci wrote on Instagram.
In a glimmer of hope, a group of strangers decided to work together to clean and restore the statue.
According to New York state law, second-degree criminal mischief is a class D felony. The law states, “A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the second degree when with intent to damage property of another person, and having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he damages property of another person in an amount exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars.” A class D felony carries a potential sentence of up to seven years in prison.
But Beals’ real role was played when he violated his curfew and joined his white brothers in Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, where he was arrested under his stage name, Micah Feria, along with seven others from Michigan on Jan. 6.
His arrests date back to 2002, and cross the nation: Michigan, California, and Washington state, according to reporting by Heavy.com. His charges include everything from malicious destruction of property to driving without a valid license to giving false information to a police officer.
So, now the little-known Z-list actor gets his 15 minutes of fame. Here’s to hoping he gets a lot more than that in jail time.