Chica­go removes Colum­bus stat­ue from Grant Park in dead of night

The stat­ue was being removed part­ly to de-esca­late ten­sions between pro­test­ers and police, a report said

Work­ers arrived under cov­er of dark­ness ear­ly Fri­day to remove a Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue from Chica­go’s Grant Park – a week after riot­ers clashed with city police as they attempt­ed to tear the stat­ue down.

The stat­ue was being removed part­ly to de-esca­late ten­sions between pro­test­ers and police as unrest con­tin­ues in the nation’s third-largest city, the Chica­go Tri­bune report­ed.

Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue being removed from the Grant Park in Chica­go, Illi­nois, July 24, 2020 (Reuters)

Chica­go May­or Lori Light­foot made the deci­sion to remove the stat­ue — as well as anoth­er Colum­bus one in Lit­tle Italy ear­li­er Thurs­day, accord­ing to FOX 32 in Chicago.

Videos and still images post­ed on social media showed the stat­ue draped in a cloth as a crane pulled up to dis­lodge the stat­ue from a pedestal before dri­ving off.

Where the stat­ue would be stored – and whether it will return any­time soon – wasn’t imme­di­ate­ly known.

The stat­ue was removed around 3 a.m. Fri­day after hours of tense argu­ments between pro­po­nents of its removal and sup­port­ers of the stat­ue, FOX 32 reported.

“This stat­ue com­ing down is because of the effort of Black and Indige­nous activists who know the true his­to­ry of Colum­bus and what he rep­re­sents,” neigh­bor Ste­fan Cuevas-Caiza­guano told the sta­tion.

The deci­sion to remove the stat­ue is a rever­sal for Light­foot who has said in the past that tak­ing down Colum­bus mon­u­ments eras­es his­to­ry, the Tri­bune reported.

Last Fri­day, mul­ti­ple police offi­cers were injured and sev­er­al arrests were made dur­ing a tense protest in which demon­stra­tors tried to pull down the stat­ue, FOX 32 report­ed.

Pro­test­ers filed at least 20 com­plaints of police bru­tal­i­ty and activist Mir­a­cle Boyd said an offi­cer hit her in the face, knock­ing at least one of her teeth out, accord­ing to the Tri­bune.

Some Ital­ian Amer­i­cans in the city, who see Colum­bus as a fig­ure of pride, have report­ed­ly been opposed to the removal of the statue.

“The Ital­ian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty feels betrayed,” Pasquale Gian­ni of the Joint Civic Com­mit­tee of Ital­ian Amer­i­cans, said in a state­ment, accord­ing to WLS-TV in Chica­go. “The May­or’s Office is giv­ing into a vocal and destruc­tive minor­i­ty. This is not how the Demo­c­ra­t­ic process is sup­posed to work.”

Colum­bus stat­ues across the coun­try have been tar­get­ed by pro­test­ers over his treat­ment of Indige­nous people.

Source:  Fox news / Brie Stim­son