Mayor: Columbia Christopher Columbus statue put in storage after vandalism

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV) — The first city in the United States named for Christopher Columbus has removed a statue of the explorer and placed it in storage for safekeeping.

Mayor Steve Benjamin of Columbia, South Carolina, said the statue had been vandalized with paint several times over the past week.

The mayor said he would rather have citizens and the City Council decide the statue’s fate than protesters in the middle of the night.

Workers dismembered the Columbus statue early Friday, and by mid-morning only the feet were attached to the pedestal at Riverfront Park.

Benjamin didn’t say where the statue was being stored.

Statues of Columbus, who came to North America in 1492, have been torn down by protesters in other cities who said the explorer started European colonization which exploited and led to the deaths of millions of native people on the continent.

Columbia was named in 1786 for the female representation of Columbus. It won an 11-7 vote over the name Washington in the South Carolina Senate.

South Carolina has a law protecting historic monuments from being taken down or altered without a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly.