Share

Tweet

Share

Share

Email

Comments

BOSTON —Vandals defaced an iconic statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston’s North End by covering it in red paint and tagging it with the phrase, “Black Lives Matter.”

Watch the report

The paint has since been removed, but a lot of questions and frustration has been left behind.

“Why here? It just seems so out of place,” Jeanne Brady, of the Friends of Christopher Columbus Park, said.

There was surprise and sadness to find the Columbus statue covered in paint and tagged with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”

The vandalism follows numerous similar attacks on confederate monuments across the South.

At the University of Texas, statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were among those defaced.

Over the weekend another confederate monument was defaced in Charleston, South Carolina.

And late last week, in Richmond, Virginia, vandals struck after the state’s governor refused to support a petition to remove statues of confederate leaders.

It’s not clear who is behind the vandalism, or why it surfaced in Boston, but Brady doubts it’s part of some organized effort.

“The conversation around the neighborhoods that we really don’t think it’s people who are with this cause,” she said. “You know, just people, kids trying to fool around.”

City officials don’t know why it happened, but they said they are angry it did.

“They created a lot of work for our maintenance crew who works really hard every day, and the friends group here who helps maintain the park,” Boston Parks Commissioner Chris Cook said. “That’s the thing that’s most upsetting to us.

The vandalism remains under investigation.

 

Source:  WCVB

Video Source:  YouTube