Ahead of Friday’s sentencing for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, a statue in Newark of Floyd was vandalized. Newark police say that graffiti on the recently unveiled statue referred to the Patriot Front, which has been identified as a white supremacist extremist group by the Southern Law Poverty Center.

Police in Newark have launched an investigation. A Floyd statue in Brooklyn, New York was also vandalized.

Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison for Floyd’s murder; prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 30 years.

WATCH: Statue of George Floyd unveiled in Newark

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