Atlanta's Peace Monument was damaged by protesters Sunday night, though it was erected in 1911 to urge reconciliation after the Civil War, not to celebrate the Confederacy.
The sculpture features an angel standing above a Confederate soldier, guiding him to lay down his weapon. Protesters traveled in Atlanta from Woodruff Park to Piedmont Park, where the Peace Monument is located, and some desecrated it, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The scene was only protected by one police officer, who was surrounded by black-clad Antifa protesters shouting "pig."
"I completely understand what happened," Thornton Kennedy, a sixth generation Atlantan who has taken his children to visit the monument many times to explain Atlanta's history, told the Journal-Constitution. "It's a statue that, to the observer, looks like a Confederate memorial."
Atlanta author Goldie Taylor tweeted, "The Peace Monument is NOT a Confederate memorial. It was erected to honor those who worked to reunify the country after Reconstruction."
https://twitter.com/goldietaylor/status/896909305936478210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fbuzz.blog.ajc.com%2F2017%2F08%2F14%2Fatlantas-peace-monument-desecrated-by-protesters-champions-unity-not-the-confederacy%2F
The Journal-Constitution also reported that Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields expressed regret about how her officers dealt with protesters Sunday who defaced the statue.
"I feel like that we should have identified, removed, and arrested a couple of people earlier in the march, absolutely," Shields said in an interview with Channel 2 Action News.
Shields said that by the time it was clear arrests were necessary, "We couldn't identify them. And that's not acceptable. We have the intelligence, we have the probable cause, we need to take action."