A man was shot during the attempted removal of a bronze conquistador statue in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Protesters clashed with armed New Mexico Civil Guard members who organized to defend the Juan de Onate statue in Albuquerque on Monday. Footage circulating on Twitter showed a large group of demonstrators attempting to pull down the statue before gunshots rang out.
The confrontation came as protesters surrounding the statue tied a rope around its base and chanted, “Tear it down!” In a video from the scene, a man wearing a blue shirt can be seen running away from a crowd of people as someone says, “We’re going to f—ing kill you.” Moments later, several volleys and screams can be heard.
“The shooting tonight was a tragic, outrageous and unacceptable act of violence and it has no place in our city,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said Tuesday morning in a press release.
The condition of the man injured has not yet been released.
Albuquerque Police Chief Michael Geier said he had received reports of “vigilante groups” who were responsible for starting the exchange.
“We are receiving reports about vigilante groups possibly instigating this violence. If this is true [we] will be holding them accountable to the fullest extent of the law, including federal hate group designation and prosecution,” he tweeted Monday night.
Geier added that the statue would be removed “until the appropriate civic institutions can determine next steps.”
For some New Mexicans, Onate symbolizes a time of great repression. He rode into present-day New Mexico in the late 1500s and is remembered as both a cultural father of the state but also as a brutal warrior who massacred close to 1,000 Native American dwellers in the region in 1599.
