A 31-year-old gun-control activist was arrested after spray-painting his website across victims’ names at the 9/11 Memorial, a stunt he filmed and promoted as civil resistance.
New York Post reporting describes Jonathan Andrew Tijerina walking up to the North Tower reflecting pool on a Monday evening, pulling a spray can from his bag, and writing in red across several panels that bear the names of people killed in the terror attacks.
Police charged him with criminal mischief and making graffiti. He identified himself as the person behind the vandalism, which authorities put at more than $2,500 in damages. The 9/11 Memorial and Museums said staff and law enforcement moved quickly and restored the area.
Tijerina did not hide. He recorded the act from start to finish and posted the video. In the clip he states his name and what he just did.
"My name is Jon Tijerina and I’ve just spray-painted ‘just stop killing kids’ on the 9/11 Memorial,"
The markings read “Juststopkillingkids.com” and ran across the engraved names of dozens of victims at the footprint of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack in the rebuilt World Trade Center.
A spokesperson for the 9/11 Memorial and Museums told CBS New York the site exists for reflection, not political theater.
"The 9/11 Memorial is a sacred place of reflection at the heart of a rebuilt World Trade Center that honors the 2,983 victims killed in the September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 terrorist attacks. Yesterday’s brief incident was swiftly addressed by security staff and law enforcement, and the impacted area was immediately restored to its commemorative state,"
That is the point. The names cut into that stone belong to people murdered in terrorist attacks. They are not a blank wall for a campaign website.
Tijerina’s group, Just Stop Killing Kids, framed the arrest as a win. A follow-up Instagram post from the account tied to the website put the arrest on October 26, 2026, and named the audience he wanted.
"On October 26, 2026, Jon Tijerina was arrested for spraying red paint on Freedom Tower in NYC. He is demanding that Trump and Mamdani enforce common-sense, highly popular demands with respect to guns such as Universal Background Checks and a National Gun Registry,"
The same organization promotes what it calls “nonviolent civil resistance.” Its website lists two demands: universal background checks and a national gun registry. It argues both already exist in other wealthy countries and do not require repealing the Second Amendment.
"We have two specific, achievable demands. Both have majority public support. Both already exist in other high-income countries. Neither requires repealing the Second Amendment. We are not asking for the impossible, we are asking for what every other wealthy democracy already has,"
He also cited a mass shooting after the Florida A&M homecoming football game as part of his reason for the memorial stunt. Before this, he staged a seven-day fast to push a separate housing demand, 2 million affordable units in the city within five years, and complained that protest drew no attention.
So he chose the 9/11 Memorial instead.
Police say Tijerina, 31, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and making graffiti. He admitted he was the one who did it. Damages topped $2,500. Memorial crews removed the red paint and returned the panels to their commemorative state. No injuries were reported.
He filmed himself defacing the names of the dead, posted the video, and then cast the arrest as leverage on President Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over gun policy. That sequence is not civil debate. It is using a mass-grave marker as a prop.
Americans already argue hard over background checks and registries in legislatures, courts, and elections. None of that requires spray paint on the names of people killed on September 11.
Sacred ground is not a billboard. When activists treat the 9/11 Memorial like a stage for their next demand, they show how little the victims’ memory constrains them.
