CHICAGO (CBS) — In the second act of vandalism in three days, a statue of Christopher Columbus was found defaced in the Little Italy neighborhood on Columbus Day.
City workers removed the graffiti Monday morning.
The same statue also was vandalized early Saturday. Police said three males on bicycles were spotted defacing the statue shortly after midnight, and the suspects tried to ride away when a witness confronted them.
One of the suspects, 30-year-old Kyle Miskell, fell off his bike, and the witness detained him until police arrived and arrested him. Miskell has been charged with felony counts of criminal damage to government property, and criminal defacement of property.
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — A statue of Christopher Columbus was covered up Monday just as the first Indigenous Peoples Day in Los Angeles got underway.
That statue is located in downtown Los Angeles’ Grand Park, in front of an entrance to the Stanley Mosk Courthouse off Hill Street. A white cover was placed over the sculpture of Christopher Columbus and the block it stands on, and a chain-link fence erected around it.
City officials did not say they were going to cover up the statue, but Christopher Columbus monuments in other cities like New York have been defaced.
The cover was removed later Monday morning, but the chain-link fence remained.
#UPDATE– covering over #ChristopherColumbus statue in Grand Park lifted, still protective gate at base @CBSLA pic.twitter.com/4YkXrFqEZC
— Kara Finnstrom (@KaraFinnstrom) October 9, 2017
The Los Angeles City Council voted in August to rename Columbus Day – a federal holiday for more than 80 years – to Indigenous Peoples Day, but it has until 2019 to officially create the new holiday while it drafts and creates a new ordinance.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted this week to eliminate all references to Columbus Day as a county holiday, designating Oct. 12 as Italian American Heritage Day and creating a new Indigenous Peoples Day.