A statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike was torn down by protesters in Washington, D.C., as police looked on.
The incident occurred on Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the last slaves being freed in Texas. Dozens of demonstrators gathered near Judiciary Square in Washington, D.C., where rope and chains were looped over the top of the Pike statue on Friday night, according to the Washington Post. During the process, police officers watched but didn’t intervene.
Once the statue of Pike was toppled, demonstrators doused it in lighter fluid and set it on fire.
And protesters just toppled the Albert Pike statue in DC pic.twitter.com/gEzJm0OYjd
— Perry Stein (@PerryStein) June 20, 2020
President Trump reacted to the statue’s demise from blocks away at the White House. On Twitter, he condemned the police department for not intervening and tagged District Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been a target of the president’s ire since protests began across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“The D.C. Police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country! @MayorBowser,” Trump wrote Friday night.
The D.C. Police are not doing their job as they watch a statue be ripped down & burn. These people should be immediately arrested. A disgrace to our Country! @MayorBowser
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 20, 2020
Pike was a brigadier general in the Confederacy whose critics claim he helped form the Ku Klux Klan. The statue of Pike, who was also heavily involved in the Freemasons, was erected in 1901. Across the country, statues have been torn down as part of a mass movement calling attention to racial injustice in the United States.
Protests began weeks ago after Floyd, a black man, was filmed being pinned to the ground on Memorial Day by a white police officer for nearly nine minutes while pleading for air. Floyd died in police custody, and all officers involved in the incident have been charged with crimes.
