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Vandals spray paint ‘killer’ and ‘land back’ on 128-year-old Christopher Columbus statue in Central Park
- Police are on the hunt for a man and woman who vandalized the New York statue
- The statue was seen with the words ‘land back’ written on it in red spray paint.
- Leftest has previously threatened to tear down the controversial statue.
A New York City statue of Christopher Columbus was vandalized with the words “assassin” splattered in red paint.
Police are hunting two people who vandalized the Central Park statue with spray paint Sunday around 11:30 p.m. Investigators believe the suspects are a man and a woman based on previously unreleased footage, according to the police. New York Post.
Photos of the statue Monday morning showed the words “land of return” and “murder” written on the historic statue that has stood in the park since 1894.
In the afternoon, the paint appeared to have been removed from the barricaded statue when the red residue was seen fading onto the floor.
The controversial statue has received threats in the past from people who wanted to tear it down over “a 400-year historical dispute.”
Police are on the hunt for two people they believe to be a man and a woman, who defaced the Central Park statue with spray paint Sunday around 11:30 p.m.
Photos of the statue Monday morning showed the words ‘land back’ and ‘murder’ written on the historic statue that has stood in the park since 1894.
The Christopher Columbus statue was gifted to Central Park in 1892 by the Genealogical and Biographical Society in honor of the 400th anniversary of the explorer’s arrival in the New World, according to the NYC Parks website.
The statue is a replica of the one created by the artist Jerónimo Sunol that is located in Madrid, Spain.
Columbus commemorations have divided the United States for years, with many arguing that his arrival led to the genocide of indigenous peoples.
To Native Americans, it is seen as a symbol of violence with its arrival in the continental US in 1492, sparking centuries of European colonization and slavery.
But to the Italian-American population, he is a hero, providing a cultural icon that Italian immigrants cling to when they arrived on American soil in the late 1880s and faced xenophobia.
There are five Columbus parks in the city, including one at Central Park in Manhattan, Columbus Circle in Manhattan, Columbus Park in downtown Brooklyn, D’Auria Murphy Park in the Bronx, and Columbus Square in Astoria, Queens.
The monuments often become the focal points of local Columbus Day parades and festivities.
The controversial statue has received previous threats from ‘psychotic leftists’ threatening to tear it down over ‘a 400-year historical dispute’
The Christopher Columbus statue was gifted to Central Park in 1892 by the Genealogical and Biographical Society in honor of the 400th anniversary of the explorer’s arrival in the New World.
In February 2021, the NYPD guarded the various statues around the clock amid threats that they would be torn down as the nation called for an end to systemic racism following the June 2020 death of George Floyd.
At the time, a law enforcement source told the New York Post that the Columbus Circle monument was “a known target.”
Statues, flags, and displays of Confederate or racist symbols and historical figures have been toppled or toppled across the United States.
The recent Central Park incident is a common occurrence among Columbus statues.
On Columbus Day in November 2020, a statue in Rhode Island was splattered with red paint amid calls to rename the day Indigenous Peoples Day.
In July 2020, figures in Grant Park and Little Italy in Chicago were removed by city officials after thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters called for their removal.
This came after California officials removed a Columbus monument from the state capitol, ruling that the presence of the ‘deeply polarizing historical figure’ was ‘completely out of place today’, while a statue in Boston was decapitated the same month.