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NEW HAVEN, CT (WFSB) – A team of activists worked to save a Christopher Columbus statue in New Haven’s Wooster Square Wednesday morning, but the statue still came down.
The Italian American Heritage Group of New Haven filed an injunction to prevent city leaders from removing the monument.
However, New Haven police told Channel 3 that the statue would be removed on Wednesday morning.
A crew arrived around 11 a.m. preparing to take the statue down, and it took about two hours for the statue to fully come down.
A group of between 40 and 50 people in support of the statue gathered near it around 6 a.m.
A few hours after, protesters who want to see the statue came down arrived, clashing with the Italian American Heritage Group members.
“Back in 1492, everybody had a cloudy past, including Columbus with Native Americans, but people should respect our heritage and what he represents to us,” said Lou Pane.
The injunction, which has not yet been approved, was filed on Tuesday in New Haven Court with the goal to protect the statue of Christopher Columbus.
Members of the Italian American Heritage Group of New Haven said they want to make sure no one removes the monument.
“All race, creeds, religions, they all have something to endure from their past so now are we going to take down statues of anywhere affiliated with something that was wrong in the past?” asked Peter Criscuolo, Italian Heritage Group of New Haven. “I mean where does it stop.”
Some tried to block the crane from coming in before police told them to step aside.
“If there are things that he’s done wrong in the past, fine we exposed it, bring it out, teach that going further into our future, but if we get rid of history, how do we know what happened, how are we going to erase it and start where,” Criscuolo said.
Columbus statues became a lightning rod in recent weeks following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died while Minneapolis police custody.
Critics said his image is painful to indigenous people and that Columbus was especially cruel to slaves and minorities. Others, however, said although he was not perfect, people can not deny Columbus’s historical importance or the fact that he became a hero to many Italian Americans.
Channel 3 has seen Columbus statues around the country and in Connecticut vandalized in recent weeks.
RELATED: Christopher Columbus statue vandalized with paint in New Haven
Over the weekend, someone splattered red paint on the monument in Wooster Square.
Those incidents led some people to argue the statues have become safety issues, but members of the Italian American Heritage Group of New Haven disagree.
The real protection though may come in the form of the injunction.
The group claims the city can’t remove the monument because it’s in a historically protected area.
The city will hold onto the statue and transfer it to the Knights of Columbus Museum where it will reside.
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