Crime Scenes

Cops Arrest ‘Tastes Like Hate’ Chick-fil-A Graffiti Guy

And like jail food.
And like jail food. Photo: Sandy Mazza via The Daily Breeze

Manny Castro, the West Hollywood–based artist who publicly took responsibility for painting a cow and “Tastes Like Hate” in giant letters on a Chick-fil-A in L.A.’s city of Torrance last week, has been arrested, because that’s what typically happens when you commit a crime then crow to the media about it. Castro, who is gay and claimed he was not going “to sit quietly at the back of the bus” amid the chicken chain’s marriage-equality discrimination flap, gave two interviews to HuffPo that admitted the graffiti was drawn by his own hand, one of the admissions coming just hours after the crime sparked national media attention. Today, the L.A. Times reports that Castro got nabbed by police on Wednesday night and taken in on suspicion of vandalism, following the cops’ own investigation.

Now police may also be looking for an accomplice in Castro’s alleged attack on Chick-fil-A’s wall, while the notoriously self-promoting painter (who apparently dispatched a press release last time he defaced something) reportedly posted $20,000 bail, is back on the streets, and hopefully no longer squawking to anyone but a good lawyer as L.A. County’s D.A. is weighing his fate. Then again, by dropping the dime on himself, maybe a high-profile arrest is exactly what Castro has been hoping for all along.

Gay artist arrested in Chick-fil-A ‘hate’ vandalism incident [LAT]

Earlier: Will Chick-fil-A Turn the Other Cheek on Manny Castro? [GS]

Cops Arrest ‘Tastes Like Hate’ Chick-fil-A Graffiti Guy