After the Santa Maria Town Center was vandalized Sunday night, local business owners and residents made a plan to clean up the mess. The damage followed a protest against police brutality in downtown Santa Maria opposing the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Dan Hernandez, owner of Dan’s Mobile Detailing, said he watched, horrified, as the protest escalated Sunday night. As a fire blazed in the intersection of Broadway and Cook Street near the Town Center, Hernandez moved to retrieve his service truck so he could put out the fire with his pressure washer. Once he returned, a firefighter was on scene already putting out the flames, so he stayed back and watched as the destruction grew worse around him. “When I saw people breaking into that Macy’s it broke my heart,” Hernandez said.
