Skip to content

Eight are charged in toppling of North Carolina statue as scores line up to confess

Author
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

Scores of people lined up in front of the sheriff’s office in Durham County, North Carolina, on Thursday to “confess” to vandalizing a Confederate statue that protesters pulled down from its pedestal earlier this week, a demonstration meant to raise concerns about the charges officials leveled against the alleged perpetrators.

An estimated 200 to 300 people showed up at the sheriff’s office to collectively accept responsibility for the damaged monument, said Courtney Sebring, the Durham County co-chair of the Black Youth 100 Project (BYT 100). Durham Country Sheriff Michael Andrews and people live-tweeting from the scene estimated the gathering attracted more than 100 participants.

During the Monday protest, several dozen “anti-fascist” and community groups rallied around the Confederate soldier statue as it was pulled from its pedestal outside the old Durham County Courthouse and left it in a mangled heap. It had stood atop an engraved pedestal that read, “In memory of ‘the boys who wore the gray.’ ” It was erected in 1924 and stood 15 feet tall, according to a memorial database. On one side of the granite pedestal is an image of a Confederate flag.

Sheriff’s deputies announced early Tuesday that video taken by sheriff’s deputies during the protest would be used to identify and arrest the people involved in pulling down the statue from its pedestal in downtown Durham. Later that morning, sheriff’s deputies arrested Takiyah Thompson, 22, and charged her with a collection of felony and misdemeanor charges, including disorderly conduct, damage to real property, participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500, and inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500.

In video of the scene, Thompson can be seen climbing a silver ladder and affixing a yellow strap to the head and neck of the Confederate figure that was then used to pull the mangled remains of the statue to the ground.

By Wednesday, three additional activists who had been identified and charged with similar crimes turned themselves in to sheriff’s deputies: Dante Emmanuel Strobino, 35; Ngoc Loan Tran, 24; and Peter Gull Gilbert, 39.

The array of felony charges outraged many people in the city, Sebring said. The organization was one of several involved in Monday’s protest and the handling of communications for those involved, she said.

“Folks are facing charges like felony incitement to a riot,” Sebring said. “A riot requires force and people to have been forced to participate, unable to move due to a violent situation, and every single person there wanted that monument down. They, together, no longer wanted white supremacy to be towering over downtown Durham.”

The sheriff’s department said it made no arrests related to the Thursday demonstration at its office. However, three people were arrested there in connection with the removal of the monument: Aaron Alexander Caldwell, 24; Raul Mauro Arce Jimenez, 26; and Elena Everett, 30, officials said. Taylor Alexander Jun Cook, 24, turned himself in later in the day, the department said.

All have been released.

Also in Durham on Thursday, Duke University reported that a Robert E. Lee statue in the portal of the campus chapel’s entrance had been damaged, according to the Herald-Sun. Parts of the statue’s face had been chipped off, a university official said. The statue is one of 10 that ring the chapel’s entrance and were installed when the chapel was first built.

The Washington Post’s Alex Horton contributed to this report.