Authorities arrested a woman Thursday after a statue of a former governor and Confederate leader outside the Georgia Capitol was vandalized.
Demonstrators have gathered daily this week to call for the removal of the monument to John Brown Gordon. The bronze statue, which depicts Gordon atop his horse, is one of the most controversial monuments to the Old South on the Capitol grounds.
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In addition to his stint as governor, Gordon served as a Confederate war commander, a U.S. Senator and was generally acknowledged as a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.
On Thursday, Capitol police took 55-year-old Jamie Loughner into custody after Gordon’s statue was defaced shortly after 6 p.m. According to an incident report, she wrote “tear down” on the statue in yellow chalk.
Credit: Fulton County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Fulton County Sheriff's Office
Loughner, who is from Atlanta, was arrested on charges of felony interference with government property and misdemeanor criminal trespass.
She was being held Friday in the Fulton County Jail on a $1,500 bond.
The group rallying to remove the statue is expected to take up their cause again Friday night. Using the hashtag #TEARDOWNGORDON, organizers are calling for daily demonstrations at the statue until action is taken.
The demonstrations come amid other recent protests for justice in the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as the vigilante killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
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