SAN DIEGO - The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), along with Balfour Beatty Construction, LLC, are facing civil charges in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District from a San Diego artist who says the school and construction company wrongfully destroyed his artwork, according to documents filed on Feb. 25.
The plaintiff, Salvador Roberto Torres, is a renowned artist known for murals and paintings. In 1988, he was commissioned by SDUSD to paint a more-than-3,000-square-foot mural at the Memorial Junior High School.
In the years leading up to September 2020, the school district allegedly discussed and planned to bulldoze the school for a new campus and did not inform Torres of the intent to destroy the mural.
Despite pleas from the plaintiff and the community to not let the artwork be destroyed, Balfour Beatty Construction razed the building at the school's direction on Sept. 23, 2020, the suit says.
The suit explains that the mural could have been easily removed and preserved through multiple different mural removal methods, and at the least pictures of the mural could have been taken, which the school admitted to not doing.
Images of the wall on which the mural was painted in a state of half-dismantling reportedly circulated various local news sources, implying that Torres' artwork was not worthy of preservation, the suit said.
Torres has filed one count of infringement of rights of integrity and attribution, one count of intentional destruction of fine art, one count of conversion and one count of negligence. He is requesting punitive damages judged by the court, and is represented by the Law Offices of Lawrence G. Townsend.