Several Left-wing Durham Protesters Arrested for Destroying Confederate Monument

The leader of the mob was easily identified as North Carolina Central University student Takiyah Fatima Thompson, 22, a leader in the local chapter of the Workers World Party.

She used a ladder to get onto the monument platform and attach a strap to the statue so others in the mob could pull it down.

Thompson was arrested yesterday and charged with: participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 and inciting others to riot where property damage exceeds $1,500, both felonies, as well as damage to real property and disorderly conduct by injury to a statue, both misdemeanors. She was given $10,000 unsecured bond.

This morning she was arraigned in court.

As the Garner resident was making her court appearance, two of her comrades were arrested and charged with similar crimes. Dante Emmanuel Strobino, 35, and Ngoc Loan Tran, 24, both of Durham, were identified, as was Thompson, through analysis of videotape from the protest.

Yesterday, Durham County Sheriff Mike Andrews had indicated his team was working to find those responsible and prosecute them.

Let me be clear, no one is getting away with what happened. We will find the people responsible. We can all agree yesterday went too far. Yesterday was not the Durham that I know.”

After her arrest, Thompson arrogantly held a press conference to defend the actions of the group that destroyed the statue.

I’m tired of white supremacy keeping its foot on my neck and the necks of people who look like me. That statue glorifies the conditions that oppressed people live in, and it had to go.”

Durham County Manager Wendell Davis said the Monday protest began peacefully but quickly degenerated.

Regardless of what this monument memorializes in our history, the destruction of this figure was unlawful, and it represented an inappropriate action. There is a lawful way to gain the attention of our state to address the desire to move, remove or make substantive changes to a public monument.”

Andrews defended his office for not intervening to stop the statue takedown. Prior to the event in order to minimize problems, streets were blocked off, the statue was sprayed with solvent so any attempt to deface it could be easily cleaned, and uniformed and plainclothes deputies were in the crowd to maintain order.

He said they decided to make no arrests during the incident in order to avoid injuries that could have occurred while engaging a hostile crowd.

While Durham authorities are cracking down on the hooligans and thugs, Governor Roy Cooper is demonstrating his total lack of a backbone. He’s calling for repeal of a 2015 North Carolina law that restricts the removal of Confederate monuments until the North Carolina Historical Commission approves any such local effort to remove or alter such memorials.

My first responsibility as governor is to protect North Carolinians and keep them safe,” Cooper said in an online post. “The likelihood of protesters being injured or worse as they may try to topple any one of the hundreds of monuments in our state concerns me. And the potential for those same white supremacist elements we saw in Charlottesville to swarm the site, weapons in hand, in retaliation is a threat to public safety.”

Cooper should get his eyes checked because he obviously didn’t see the Antifa hoodlums in Charlottesville wielding baseball bats and other threatening items. But then again, he’s just pushing the Democrat and media fake news narrative.

Source: WRAL-TV, WRAL-TV