Three University graduate students were arrested early Saturday morning for second-degree criminal mischief after they spray-painted two stencil designs near Prince Lucien Campbell Hall, police and one of the students said.
Police contacted architecture graduate students Nathan E. Majeski, 24, Michael C. Walsh, 26, and economics graduate student Anna-Maria Aksan, 24, near East 14th Avenue and Kincaid Street after a University employee saw them spray painting in the PLC courtyard, Eugene police spokeswoman Kerry Delf said.
The trio used a custom stencil created by Majeski to create two graffiti paintings near PLC, Majeski said.
“We are all, like, deeply sorry about what we did, and we believe in our methods strongly, but we realize after doing this our means were completely inappropriate,” Majeski said Monday.
It was the first time the group had stenciled, he said.
“We have seen a lot of stencils around,” he said. “We actually didn’t realize it was such a serious crime before we did it.”
The paintings, based on art from a new Michael Franti album and movie, depicted a bullet-riddled hand making a peace sign. Majeski said their message was for the government to have a “social conscience” and understand the effects of what it is doing around the world.
“Basically, our message was peace and unity,” he said. “We just did it the wrong way.”
The trio erased the paintings and has written a letter of apology to the University, he said.