A statue of Christopher Columbus in Little Italy in Baltimore was knocked down amid protests Saturday night and then dumped into the Inner Harbor. Videos posted on social media showed that the statue was pulled down with a rope and then dragged down a flight of stairs before being thrown into the port, CBS Baltimore reported.
The crowd can be heard cheering as the statue is thrown into the harbor. The statue was thrown into the port when fireworks exploded across the city to celebrate July 4th.
Governor Larry Hogan said Sunday that tearing down the statue was “an antithesis of democracy and should be condemned by all, regardless of their policy.”
“While we welcome peaceful protests and constructive dialogue on how to put certain monuments in context and move them to museums or warehouses through a legal process and how to do it, the illegality, vandalism and destruction of public property are completely unacceptable,” he said. Hogan.
Police told CBS Baltimore on Saturday night that they were aware of the incident, but that protesters had blocked roads in the area.
The statue was dedicated to the city of Baltimore by the American Italian Organization in October 1984, according to CBS Baltimore.
Lester Davis, a spokesman for Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, told The Baltimore Sun on Saturday night that the demolition of the statue is part of a “reexamination taking place nationally and globally around some of these monuments and statues that can represent different things to different people. ”
Davis said tearing down the statue is part of a broader “national narrative”. Protests have erupted across the country after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Baltimore was also the scene of protests in 2015 when Freddie Gray died after suffering a traumatic spinal injury while in police custody
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