Protesters beheaded a Christopher Columbus statue in Connecticut, threw another into the port of Baltimore, and set fire to a “pioneer family” sculpture in Portland, Oregon, over the weekend of July 4, as clashes over controversial monuments continued. in all the country.
“While we welcome peaceful protests and constructive dialogue on whether and how to put certain monuments in context or move them to museums through a legal process, the illegality, vandalism and destruction of public property are completely unacceptable,” he said. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan in a statement. Facebook post on Sunday after the Columbus statue in Baltimore became engaged to the seas.
“Baltimore city leaders need to regain control of their own streets and immediately begin to make them safer,” Hogan wrote. “That is the antithesis of democracy and should be condemned by everyone, regardless of their policy.”
The marble statue of Columbus, which stood on a pedestal near Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood, was assembled by protesters on Saturday night, July 4.
The crowd tied ropes to him and threw him to the ground before dragging him into the inner harbor and throwing him into the water.
The statue was erected in 1984 and dedicated by then Mayor William Donald Schaefer and then President Ronald Reagan.
It was not the only monument to the 15th century Italian explorer attacked over the weekend.
In Waterbury, Connecticut, police discovered Saturday morning that the head of a 12-foot-tall granite Columbus statue near City Hall had been cut off overnight and was still missing.
“This was a gift to the city of Waterbury from Italian Americans, and it is unfortunate that it has been desecrated in this way,” David X. Sullivan, a local congressional candidate, told KARK-TV.
Statues of historical figures, including Columbus, George Washington, Confederate figures, and other slave owners, have become the target of Black Lives Matter protests as national racial unrest has renewed debates over their mixed legacies.
Portland, Oregon police also declared riots Saturday when protesters set fire to “The Promised Land,” a sculpture in a park outside the city’s justice center, according to the Daily Mail.
Commemorating the Oregon Trail, the bronze sculpture depicts a pioneer father, mother and son.
Protesters also tried to burn down the justice center itself, the newspaper reported.
President Trump has condemned the desecration of monuments. At his Mount Rushmore rally on Friday, he promised to sign an executive order to create “the National Garden of American Heroes that would feature statues of great Americans.”
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