Protesters tore down more statues across the U.S.

Protesters topple figures representing Confederacy, slave owners

SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters tore down more statues across the United States, expanding the razing in a San Francisco park to the writer of America’s national anthem and the general who won the country’s Civil War.

On the East Coast, more statues honoring Confederates who tried to break away from the United States more than 150 years ago were toppled.

But several were removed at the order of North Carolina’s Democratic governor, who said he was trying to avoid violent clashes or injuries from toppling the heavy monuments erected by white supremacists that he said do not belong in places like the state capitol grounds that are for all people.

The statues are falling amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the May 25 police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, the Black man who died after a white police officers pressed his knee on his neck and whose death galvanized protesters.

In San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, protesters sprayed red paint and wrote “slave owner” on pedestals before using ropes to bring down the statues and drag them down grassy slopes amid cheers and applause.

The statues targeted included a bust of Ulysses Grant, who became the 18th president after the Union’s top general finally beat the Confederates and ended the Civil War.

Protesters said Grant owned slaves and married into a slave-owning family.

Also torn down in the San Francisco park was a statue of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the U.S. national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Key owned slaves.

Police officers responded to the park but didn’t intervene. The crowd threw objects at the officers, but no injuries or arrests were reported, San Francisco Police spokesman Officer Adam Lobsinger said.

In Washington, D.C., and Raleigh, North Carolina, it was another night of tearing down Confederate statues. In the nation’s capital, demonstrators toppled the 11-foot statue of Albert Pike, the only statue in the city of a Confederate general. Then they set a bonfire and stood around it in a circle as the statue burned, chanting, “No justice, no peace!” and “No racist police!”

President Donald Trump quickly tweeted about the toppling, calling out D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and writing: “The DC police are not doing their job as they watched a statue be ripped down and burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country!”

Two statues of two Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk were torn down Friday night by protesters in Raleigh, North Carolina.