A Confederate statue in North Carolina was toppled by protesters Monday night as the crowd demanded that people fight against racism in response to the violence at Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.
One protester climbed a ladder and placed a yellow cord around the statue's head, which depicted a Confederate soldier. A group of protesters on the ground then pulled the cord until the stone pedestal collapsed and the statute, erected almost a century ago, came tumbling to the ground, the Durham Herald Sun reported.
Some protesters started to kick the statue and the crowd cheered after it was down. Law enforcement officials recorded the incident but did not attempt to intervene, the Herald Sun reported.
The Durham County Sheriff's Office said in a statement Tuesday that it will work to identify people responsible for the "removal and vandalism" of the statue, WRAL-TV reported. It was the second day of protest around the Confederate Soldiers Monument.
"With the help of video captured at the scene, my investigators are working to identify those responsible for the removal and vandalism of the statue," Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews said, according to the television station.
"My deputies showed great restraint and respect for the constitutional rights of the group expressing their anger and disgust for recent events in our country. Racism and incivility have no place in our country or Durham. I am asking both city and county leaders to establish guidelines and safe spaces for protesters to prevent demonstrations from becoming disruptive and as we witnessed in Charlottesville, dangerous," Andrews added in his statement, per WRAL-TV.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper criticized the action of the protesters in a Twitter post.
Groups attending the rally included Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America and the ANTIFA movement, the Herald Sun wrote.
"Tactics are changing, which means that our strategies need to change, our unity needs to escalate and our demands to fight back and resist domestic terror needs to escalate," Eva Panjwani, with the Workers World Party Durham, said, according to the Herald Sun.
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