Protesters in Baltimore celebrated Independence Day by taking down a statue of Spanish Explorer Christopher Columbus. Protesters fashioned a rope around the large statue and pulled it down ultimately launching it into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
According to the Baltimore Sun newspaper, the activists were protesting in favor of police reform. Local reporters posted a video of the statue being taken down.
President Trump recently signed an executive order that would punish people who take down American Monuments with a potential 10-year jail sentence. A spokesman for Baltimore’s Mayor made a statement on the incident.
The torn-down Columbus statue is part of a “re-examination taking place nationally and globally around some of these monuments and statues that may represent different things to different people,” said Mayoral Spokesman Lester Davis according to The Sun.
“We understand the frustrations. What the city wants to do is serve as a national model, particularly with how we’ve done with protesting. We’ve seen people who have taken to the streets, we have supported them. We are going to continue to support it. That’s a full stop.”
Baltimore has had it’s share of national attention related to police misconduct. In 2015, Freddie Gray was killed while in police custody and no convictions ever occurred. In 2018, a body cam video went viral of a police officer planting drugs at a crime scene opening up a larger concern of what local police were doing in Baltimore.
