A statue of Christopher Columbus in Richmond, Virginia, was torn down, defaced, and thrown in a lake on Tuesday night.
Protesters, who local media reported were peaceful moments before, used ropes to pull the statue down from its pedestal at about 9 p.m.
The protesters had gathered in a show of support for indigenous people.
Once it was torn down, the statue, which sat in Byrd Park, was lit on fire and thrown in nearby Fountain Lake.
WWBT-TV reported a photographer for the station was grabbed and threatened by one of the protesters and told to leave.
The station reported the base of the statue, which is owned by the city of Richmond, was spray-painted and that demonstrators left a sign that read, “Columbus represents genocide.”
Dozens of public monuments and statues have been either vandalized or destroyed during protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died on May 25 after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Floyd’s death has sparked massive protests across the country and inspired demands from activists that elected officials address systemic racism in government, specifically within police departments.
Among the most widely known monuments that have been defaced or damaged during the demonstrations were the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington.
In Virginia, where debate over the merits of leaving Confederate monuments standing has been an issue, Gov. Ralph Northam has responded to the protests by vowing to take the statues down.
“That statue has been there for a long time. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. So, we’re taking it down,” Northam, a Democrat, said last week of the Robert E. Lee statue in downtown Richmond.
Debate over a similar monument depicting Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 led to a deadly clash between white supremacists and counterprotesters.
President Trump has said little about whether local municipalities should take down Confederate monuments or other statues deemed offensive to minority communities but has condemned the widespread looting and vandalism that has taken place in the wake of Floyd’s death.
At one point, Trump responded to the demonstrations by referring to himself as a “law-and-order” president who was not afraid to deploy active-duty military to cities to quell civil unrest if local officials failed to “dominate the streets” and maintain public safety.
