#LoveTrump was the hashtag the NYPD says a Brooklyn man wrote inside the Court Street subway station along the R line on three separate occasions. Concerned riders alerted subway station managers in Brooklyn Heights about the graffiti.

 

"They got numerous complaints from riders, as well as transit workers, about the graffiti," NYPD Chief of Transit Edward Delatorre said at a news conference Tuesday.

Police said the graffiti first popped up in January. Then, during a meeting in February, subway station managers and transit police who patrol the system came up with a plan to catch the graffiti vandal: Build a wall to create a room so police could hide inside to apprehend whoever was tagging #LoveTrump. The room is just feet away from where the hashtag was being tagged on a subway sign and a steel beam.

Chief Delatorre said plainclothes officers caught the man writing LoveTrump on the beam March 15. Police say that was the third time he vandalized the property. The suspect is identified as 43-year-old Jamie Montemarano. They say he has never been arrested before, but now he faces making graffiti and criminal mischief charges.

Some people at the Court Street Station were not too happy to see the #LoveTrump mark that was still visible.

"Is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?" one rider asked. "Well, anything that has the T word in it, I don't like."

"I guess they should keep erasing it because it shouldn't belong up there," a commuter said.

Police say the tagger was shocked that he was caught and apologized for vandalizing subway property.