Statues toppled throughout US in protests against racism
By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ and JEFFREY COLLINS

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A statue of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, author of "Don Quixote," stands after being vandalized overnight in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Saturday, June 20, 2020. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group via AP) https://apnews.com/9a01ee49102df70f10ce54ae04a46fa6


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Protesters tore down more statues across the United States, expanding the razing in a San Francisco park to the writer of America’s national anthem and the general who won the country’s Civil War that ended widespread slavery.

In Seattle, pre-dawn violence erupted Saturday in a protest zone largely abandoned by police, where one person was fatally shot and another critically injured.

On the East Coast, more statues honoring Confederates who tried to break away from the United States more than 150 years ago were toppled.

But several were removed at the order of North Carolina’s Democratic governor, who said he was trying to avoid violent clashes or injuries from toppling the heavy monuments erected by white supremacists that he said do not belong in places like the state Capitol grounds that are for all people.

The statues are falling amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the May 25 police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, the African American man who died after a white police officers pressed his knee on his neck and whose death galvanized protesters around the globe to rally against police brutality and racism.

At a campaign rally Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, President Donald Trump sought to tie the destruction of monuments and statues around the country to Democratic leaders, including his likely rival in the presidential election, Joe Biden.

Trump said “the choice in 2020 is very simple. Do you want to bow before the left-wing mob or do you want to stand up tall and proud as Americans?”

In San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park along the Pacific Ocean, protesters sprayed red paint and wrote “slave owner” on pedestals before using ropes to bring down the statues and drag them down grassy slopes amid cheers and applause.

The statues targeted included a bust of Ulysses Grant, who was the U.S. president after he was the general who finally beat the Confederates and ended the Civil War.

Protesters pointed out that Grant and his family owned slaves. He married into a slave-owning family, but he had no problem fighting to end slavery. Grant also supported the 1868 Republican platform when he won the presidency, which called for allowing Black men to continue voting in the South.

Also torn down in the San Francisco park was a statue of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the U.S. national anthem “Star Spangled Banner.” Key owned slaves.

Protesters also pulled down the statue of Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, an 18th century Roman Catholic priest who founded nine of California’s 21 Spanish missions and is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to the Western United States.

Serra forced Native Americans to stay at those missions after they were converted or face brutal punishment. His statues have been defaced in California for several years by people who said he destroyed tribes and their culture.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvadore Cordileone criticized the pulling down of the Junipero Serra statue.

“What is happening to our society? A renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism,” he said in a statement Saturday night.

Police officers were called out to the park, but they didn’t intervene. The crowd threw objects at the officers, but no injuries or arrests were reported, San Francisco Police spokesman Officer Adam Lobsinger said.

In Seattle, authorities were investigating what led to the shooting in the area known as CHOP, which stands for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” zone. It has been harshly criticized by President Donald Trump, who has tweeted about possibly sending in the military to exert control.

Police released few other details about the shooting. Two men with gunshot wounds arrived in a private vehicle at a hospital about 3 a.m. One died, and the other was in critical condition, Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said.

In Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, North Carolina, it was another night of tearing down Confederate statues. In the nation’s capital, demonstrators toppled the 11-foot (3.4-meter) statue of Albert Pike, the only statue in the city of a Confederate general. Then they set a bonfire and stood around it in a circle as the statue burned, chanting, “No justice, no peace!” and “No racist police!”

Trump quickly tweeted about the toppling, calling out D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and writing: “The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!”

Two statues of two Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk were torn down Friday night by protesters in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Police officers initially stopped the demonstrators. But after they cleared the area, the protesters returned an finished the job. They dragged the statues down the street and strung one up by the neck from a light post.

Saturday morning, official work crews came to the North Carolina capitol to remove two more Confederate statues. One statue was dedicated to the women of the Confederacy, and another was placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy honoring Henry Wyatt, the first North Carolinian killed in battle in the Civil War, news outlets reported.

Gov. Roy Cooper said he ordered the removal for public safety and blamed the Republican majority state General Assembly for the danger.

“If the legislature had repealed their 2015 law that puts up legal roadblocks to removal, we could have avoided the dangerous incidents of last night,” Cooper posted on Twitter. “Monuments to white supremacy don’t belong in places of allegiance, and it’s past time that these painful memorials be moved in a legal, safe way.”

Cooper’s opponent for a second term in November, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, issued a statement saying Cooper did nothing to stop the destruction of statues and was either incompetent or encouraging lawlessness.

“It is clear that Gov. Cooper is either incapable of upholding law and order, or worse, encouraging this behavior,” Forest said.

Collins reported from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Lisa Baum in Seattle and Ashraf Khalil and Ashley Thomas in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.


The Latest: Religious leader criticizes toppling of statue
By The Associated Press

— San Francisco religious leader criticizes toppling of statue in Golden Gate Park.

— Trump tries to tie destruction of statues to Democrats, including Biden.

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Archbishop Salvadore Cordileone criticized the pulling down of the Junipero Serra statue in Golden Gate Park.

“What is happening to our society? A renewed national movement to heal memories and correct the injustices of racism and police brutality in our country has been hijacked by some into a movement of violence, looting and vandalism,” he said in a statement Saturday night.

Serra was an 18th century Roman Catholic priest who founded nine of California’s 21 Spanish missions and is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to the Western United States.

Serra forced Native Americans to stay at those missions after they were converted or face brutal punishment. His statues have been defaced in California for several years by people who said he destroyed tribes and their culture.
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TULSA, Okla. — President Donald Trump is seeking to tie the destruction of monuments and statues around the country to Democratic leaders, including his likely rival in the presidential election, Joe Biden.

Speaking to supporters in Tulsa, Trump says “the choice in 2020 is very simple. Do you want to bow before the left-wing mob or do you want to stand up tall and proud as Americans?”

Statues have been destroyed in numerous cities amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the May 25 police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, the African-American man who died in police custody.

The statues targeted included a bust of Ulysses Grant, who was the U.S. president after he was the general who finally beat the Confederates and ended the Civil War. Also torn down in a San Francisco park was a statue of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the “Star Spangled Banner.” Key owned slaves.

Trump says: “Biden remains silent in his basement in the face of this brutal assault on our nation and the values of our nation. Joe Biden has surrendered to his party and to the left-wing mob.”
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SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Mayor London Breed acknowledged “the very real pain in this country rooted in our history of slavery and oppression, especially against African-Americans and Indigenous people,” but said she didn’t condone the damage done to Golden Gate Park by dozens of protesters who defaced and tore down statues.

“Every dollar we spend cleaning up this vandalism takes funding away from actually supporting our community, including our African-American community,” Breed, who is Black, said in a statement. “I say this not to defend any particular statue or what it represents, but to recognize that when people take action in the name of my community, they should actually involve us. And when they vandalize our public parks, that’s their agenda, not ours.”

Breed said city officials will work with community members to evaluate public art and make sure it reflects San Francisco’s values.

Besides the toppled bust and statues, the park’s old museum concourse was widely spray-painted, including commemorative benches, drinking fountains, pathways and balustrades. Heavy equipment operators and cleanup crews arrived late Friday and worked through the night to remove damaged statues, paint over the graffiti and power wash the area, the parks department said.
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RALEIGH, N.C. — Crews have removed two Confederate statues outside the North Carolina state capitol in Raleigh on order of the governor.

The statues were taken away on Saturday, the morning after protesters toppled two nearby statues.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who has long advocated removing the statues, said in a press release that removing the statues was a public-safety imperative.

“If the legislature had repealed their 2015 law that puts up legal roadblocks to removal, we could have avoided the dangerous incidents of last night,” Cooper said.

One of the statues is dedicated to the women of the Confederacy. The other was placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy honoring Henry Wyatt, the first North Carolinian killed in battle in the Civil War

Both statues stood for over a century.

A 2015 law bars removal of the memorials without permission of a state historical commission. But Cooper said the law creates an exception for public-safety emergencies, and he is acting under that provision.

SAN FRANCISCO — In San Francisco, a group of about 400 people tore down statues of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the U.S., Spanish missionary Junipero Serra and Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The group of protesters arrived at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Friday night and after defacing the statues with red paint and writing “slave owner” on the platforms they were on, they toppled them using ropes and dragged them down grassy slopes amid cheers and applause.

Grant led the Union Army during the Civil War and thus was a key figure in the fight to end slavery. However, like Key, he once owned slaves. Serra, an 18th century Roman Catholic priest, founded nine of California’s 21 Spanish missions and is credited with bringing Roman Catholicism to the Western United States. He is also blamed by many Native Americans for the destruction of their culture and the decimation of several tribes.



ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A statue of the founder of Rochester, New York, has been vandalized.

Anti-racism messages were sprayed on the sculpture of Revolutionary War figure and slave owner Nathaniel Rochester.

The hands of the bronze statue of a seated Rochester were painted red, with “shame” written across the forehead. Other messages around the figure included “stole indigenous lands” and “abolish the police.”

Mayor Lovely Warren said Friday there’s a complexity to recognizing Rochester’s role in establishing what became the western New York city. She said the community should discuss “the best way to deal with those figures.”

The city’s new Commission on Racial and Structural Equity could decide. The sculpture was unveiled in 2008 as part of a neighborhood-revitalization effort led by volunteers.

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People film the only statue of a Confederate general, Albert Pike, in the nation's capital after it was toppled by protesters and set on fire in Washington early Saturday, June 20, 2020. It comes on Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the United States, amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)


WASHINGTON — Protesters have toppled the only statue of a Confederate general in the nation’s capital and set it on fire.

It comes on Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the United States, amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Cheering demonstrators jumped up and down as the 11-foot (3.4-meter) statue of Albert Pike — wrapped with chains — wobbled on its high granite pedestal before falling backward, landing in a pile of dust. Protesters then set a bonfire and stood around it in a circle as the statue burned, chanting, “No justice, no peace!” and “No racist police!”


People film the only statue of a Confederate general, Albert Pike, in the nation's capital after it was toppled by protesters and set on fire in Washington early Saturday, June 20, 2020. It comes on Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in the United States, amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Eyewitness accounts and videos posted on social media indicated that police were on the scene, but didn’t intervene.

President Donald Trump quickly tweeted about the toppling, calling out D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and writing: “The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn.” After the statue fell, most protesters returned peacefully to Lafayette Park near the White House.