Deputies arrested a 22-year-old member of the communist Workers World Party on Tuesday, Aug. 15, and charged her with vandalism for toppling a Confederate statue in Durham on Monday, Fox News reported.
Takiya Fatima Thompson was seen bringing a ladder up to the Confederate Soldiers Monument in front of old courthouse as a crowd of rioters cheered. She then tied a rope around the nearly century-old statue to help topple it.
Several rioters then proceeded to kick and stomp the downed bronze statue, which depicts a soldier with a rifle. The work was commissioned in 1929.
Thompson, a college student, now faces charges for vandalism, property damage, and rioting, according to the Durham County Sheriff’s Office.
In a statement, the Workers World Party said that Thompson was a member of the group and also a student at North Carolina Central University “who climbed to the top of the statue to tie a rope around its neck before the crowd tore it down,” CNN reported. The group wants charges dropped.
Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said that he has identified several others involved in the vandalism and his deputies are now looking for the suspects to press criminal charges.
“Let me be clear, no one is getting away with what happened. We will find the people responsible,” Andrews said on Tuesday afternoon.
“We can all agree yesterday went too far. Yesterday was not the Durham that I know.”
North Carolina’s Democratic governor likewise condemned the vandalism.
“The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments,” Gov. Roy Copper wrote on Twitter.
The toppling of the statue in Durham on Monday was triggered by events in Charlottesville on Friday and Saturday. Members of various groups, including white nationalists, and neo-Nazis, gathered to protest the removal of a Confederate statue there. They were met with counterprotesters, some of whom were armed members of the left-leaning Antifa organization.
Clashes started on Friday and continued on Saturday, culminating in a car attack that killed one counterprotester and injured 19 others. James Fields, 20, who is reportedly a fan of Nazis and Adolf Hitler, was charged in the attack.
The communist Workers World Party, which Thompson is a member of, was founded in 1959. One of the organizational goals of the communists in America is to “discredit American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression,” according to a remark read into the Congressional Record, based on a book exposing the communist agenda in the United States.
One communist cell was told explicitly to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings,” replacing it with meaningless and shapeless forms.
RELATED:
Lincoln Memorial Vandalized in Washington, DC, With Red Paint, Expletive
A vandal spray painted the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on Tuesday, Aug. 15, the National Park Service (NPS) said.
The words “[expletive] law” sprayed in red paint can be seen on a column of the monument in a photo provided by NPS.
The graffiti was found at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday, NBC reported.
Silver spray paint was also found on a Smithsonian wayfinding sign on Constitution Avenue.
Preservation crews are working to remove the paint. The specialists are using a “mild, gel-type architectural paint stripper” to take off the paint safely, according to NBC Washington.
The Lincoln Memorial has been a major tourist attraction since 1930. It has special symbolism for race-related issues. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the timeless “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the memorial on Aug. 28, 1963.
On Monday, vandals toppled a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina. Police did not make any arrests at the time, but are now looking to identify the people responsible to press criminal charges.
Late on Saturday night, a Confederate statue was vandalized with orange paint in Kentucky. City workers started cleaning the statue dedicated to Confederate soldier John B. Castleman on Monday.
The Kentucky and North Carolina incidents were trigered by violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. People protesting the removal of a Confederate statue there, including extremist white supremacists, clashed with armed and violent members of the Antifa extremist group.
Earlier this year, a vandal wrote on the Lincoln Memorial, World War II Memorial, the D.C. War Memorial and the Washington Monument with a permanent marker. The vandal’s scribblings appeared to to refer to various conspiracy theories.
A U.S. serviceman who visited the Lincoln Memorial in February was offended by the vandalism.
“I served the greatest Air Force in the world, but to come here to see that is like a slap in our face,” he said.
One of the most significant cases of vandalism of a national monument occurred in 2013. A woman splashed green paint on the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington National Cathedral.
Police arrested the woman, but she was found incompetent to stand trial.
Restoration crews took almost a month to remove the green paint at the time.
