Vandals Destroy, Submerge Christopher Columbus Statue in Richmond, Virginia

A mob of vandals in Richmond, Virginia toppled and destroyed a statue of sailor and explorer Christopher Columbus on Tuesday night.

The Columbus statue, previously located in Byrd Park in Richmond, was defaced with red paint at some point on Tuesday.

A leader of the vandalism rally could later be heard calling for the statue’s destruction to the mob, claiming that the Columbus statue is “oppressing people of color” and that it “needs to go.”

Police were reportedly present at the scene, but failed to prevent the vandals from destroying the cultural statue. The vandals were prevented from destroying a statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson, however.

The protestors dismounted the statue from its place, and later went on to dump it in a paddle boat lake.

Christopher Columbus is one of the most significant people in world history, having discovered the New World for western civilization. The vandals point to his use of slave labor in American settlements, largely ignoring that the indigenous peoples of the Americas practiced slavery as well- as did nearly every major culture in the pre-liberal historical era.

Columbus monuments and commemoration are increasingly a target for the fanatical cultural left, with many elite universities and progressive city government moving to abolish Columbus Day from the calendar. A handful of conservatives and some Italian-American heritage groups have sought to fight back against the left’s attempted cleansing of American history, achieving only a small degree of success.

The cultural crime is broadly akin to that practiced by criminal and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, which seeks to destroy the cultural monuments of its enemies in order to intimidate and terrorize them.