Arrests Begin Following Durham Confederate Statue Toppling

Arrests Begin Following Durham Confederate Statue Toppling

Moments after a press conference demanding amnesty for protesters, sheriff’s deputies arrested Taqiyah Thompson, who placed a rope around a Confederate monument Monday night.
David A. Graham / The Atlantic

David A. Graham Aug 15, 2017 Politics


DURHAM, N.C.—Sheriff’s deputies have begun arresting protesters who tore down a monument to Confederate veterans in front of the old Durham County courthouse Monday night.

Taqiyah Thompson, who climbed a ladder and put a rope around the statue before a crowd tugged it off its base, was arrested by deputies around 4:45 p.m., immediately following a press conference at North Carolina Central University, in which she had defended her actions and others demanded amnesty for all involved. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office confirmed that deputies had begun executing warrants, but she did not immediately know how many.

“I did the right thing,” Thompson said during a Workers World Party press conference on the steps of a building at the historically black college. “Everyone who was there—the people did the right thing. The people will continue to keep making the right choices until every Confederate statue is gone, until white supremacy is gone. That statue is where it belongs. It needs to be in the garbage.”

Thompson was one of several speakers at the press conference. Loan Tran said the group was demanding amnesty for all those involved in the project, including that the sheriff’s office and district attorney drop all charges. They also wanted meetings with the county commission, and criticized Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, for his statement Monday night that summarily pulling down statues was the wrong way to deal with them.

“That statue glorifies the conditions that oppressed people live in and it had to go,” Thompson said.

Local officials have protested that they had no power to pull the statue down, even if they wanted to, citing a state law passed in 2015 that says no historical monuments can be permanently removed without permission from the state. But Tran said that excuse was unacceptable. She demanded that commissioners call for symbols to come down, and she said her group would work with them to discuss some ideas, though she didn’t say what.

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https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/durham-arrests/537015/