Over the weekend, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) released a public statement via social media regarding the recent break-in earlier this month.
Dallas Museum of Art exterior. Image courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art
During the evening of June 1, 2022, twenty-one year-old Brian Hernandez broke into the museum and destroyed millions of dollars worth of art, including three ancient Greek vessels and a contemporary Cado bottle. While a museum security guard eventually apprehended Mr. Hernandez, the incident raised concerns about the museum’s ability to minimize risk to its objects on display.
According to a timeline provided by the Dallas police (and originally published by the Dallas Morning News), Mr. Hernandez entered the museum around 9:46 pm and was not approached by museum security for nearly 25 minutes. During that time, he walked through several galleries on the first, second, and third floors of the museum and damaged museum property (phones, a computer monitor, a laptop, signs, display cases, etc.) as well as the pieces noted above.
In the public statement, the DMA shared the following update: “Thanks to the strong, collaborative leadership from our Board of Trustees and Director Agustín Arteaga, we are moving forward to hire a third-party security consultant to ensure our security measures exceed best practice standards. This review is in addition to a broader ongoing assessment of our systems and facilities partnership with the City of Dallas to ensure we continue to serve our community in the best way possible.”
