Columbus statue vandalized in Miami's Bayside Marketplace, protest turns chaotic

[alp227]

Source: Miami Herald

Protesters vandalized the Bayside Marketplace statue of Christopher Columbus, whose legacy has grown contentious over how he treated indigenous communities in his quest to colonize, and when police arrived to stop them, things got heated Wednesday evening.

Five people appeared to be arrested, and one woman was thrown to the ground in the melee. Miami police could not immediately say how many were arrested.

Police “decided to bum-rush the kids on skateboards,” said Erica Clark, a Miami resident who was part of the protest. “... Everybody got upset because it didn’t take that many cops for one kid so everybody bum-rushed the cops to get them off of the one kid.”

Confederate and Columbus monuments have been targeted in recent weeks amid the protests after the death of George Floyd, the 46-year-old unarmed black man who was killed on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis cop pressed his knee to his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Read more: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article243427221.html

[Lowell]

1. The only thing Columbus discovered was

people already living here. The myth of Columbus discovering America is laughable in the face of the millions of native people living here at the time. The statues should come down.

[alp227]

2. Plus, Southern Italy hated him, according to the Sopranos