MLK, Christopher Columbus statues vandalized in Houston parks

Chron

Vandals splattered paint onto a bronze bust of Martin Luther King Jr. and a 7-foot-tall statue of Christopher Columbus in Houston as nationwide turmoil over historical statues spilled beyond the protests over Confederate monuments.

The MLK statue in the historically black community of Sunnyside was found smeared with white paint early Thursday morning.

The towering statue of Christopher Columbus in the Montrose area was doused with red paint sometime Thursday night, Houston police officials said Friday.  

The reports mark the first known acts of vandalism in Houston on historic statues during a week in which protesters are demanding the removal of Confederate memorials in Houston and across the nation.

The Houston Police Department is investigating both incidents, but no one had been arrested as of Friday afternoon. Officials wouldn’t say whether they believed the attacks were linked.

“We’re going to try to catch people in the act so we can arrest them because there’s no excuse for vandalism,” Chief Art Acevedo said.

Anyone involved could face a charge of criminal mischief, police said.

Police, meanwhile, are beefing up manpower for a planned “Destroy the Confederacy” protest Saturday at Sam Houston Park amid calls for the city to remove a Confederate statue. Counter-protesters are also planning to rally at the site.

“We’re not going to stand by and watch people destroy property,” Acevedo said. “If it happens, it’s because we didn’t do our job.”

Restorer Bob Pringle and his crew soaked the statue in a methylene chloride solution to remove the paint.

As he wiped lumpy gobs of paint from the statue, Pringle said he believes his workload could get worse.

“We typically see things like this once or twice a year, but I’m expecting we’re going to see this happen a lot more often in the next couple of weeks,” he said. “It’s unfortunate. This is not the kind of work you enjoy.”

The statue’s cleanup, which was finished by Friday afternoon, will cost the city about $3,000, said Sara Kellner, with the Arts Alliance.

Tensions have swelled this week after protests turned deadly over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a car plowed into a crowd. One person was killed and nearly three dozen were injured in the daylong clashes.

The conflicts arose during a rally that drew white supremacists over the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Counter-protesters also turned out in force.

In the Houston area, the Spirit of the Confederacy is one of just a handful of monuments celebrating ideals embodied in the Civil War. A monument to Richard Dowling — a Civil War figure whose name was removed from a city street earlier this year — sits in Hermann Park.

The vandalism comes after an online petition started by the Houston Young Communists League to remove a Confederate statue in Sam Houston Park. Following the petition, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner called Tuesday for a review of pieces in the city’s art collection that are related to the confederacy.

Residents called on the City Council Tuesday to remove the statue in Sam Houston Park, and an online petition has garnered more than 2,400 signatures as of Friday afternoon.
Mayor Sylvester Turner ordered city staff to assess Houston’s public art collection and recommend future steps.

“Let’s be very careful that we don’t allow what’s taking place in the national discourse to flow down into the city of Houston where we’re doing something where we’re hurting the city of Houston, hurting our image and what we stand for,” he said Friday. “The question is, how do we go from here? So we’re not going to erase history.”

The first report of vandalism came in about 3:55 a.m. Thursday from police officers at Bricker Park in Sunnyside over the defacing here of the King memorial.

Sgt. Baron Glover, who oversees patrol in south Houston, said it’s not clear when the vandals struck.

“They observed paint, white paint, thrown on top of the bust,” he said. “They called to the station and so from that point forth we started having officers sit out there and monitor the area and monitor the bust. We just wanted to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The bronze bust of King was created by Houston artist Eric Kaposta and erected in 1981.

Sunnyside resident Rubert Rice, who lives one block from the park, said he learned about the vandalism from a friend.

“I’ve been living here my whole life and that’s never happened in this neighborhood,” Rice said. “I don’t know what’s going on in the world right now, brother. But there’s a whole bunch of hate. That’s supposed to be gone, in generations past. We were doing good, I thought. I don’t know where this is coming from.”

The second report came in about 11:20 p.m. Thursday from several callers.

By the time police arrived at the Montrose park, the paint on the statue was dry, said HPD spokesman John Cannon.

Kellner, with the Arts Alliance, said vandals typically don’t hit statues in Houston.

“We very rarely get works graffitied in the City of Houston collection,” Kellner said. “But when it does, we take care of it.”

Managing the city’s 600 pieces of artwork is the responsibility of the Office of Cultural Affairs, which pays the Houston Arts Alliance to conserve the works, said Deborah McNulty, cultural affairs director.

Residents who frequent the parks are hoping the city can avoid any more acts of vandalism.

“It’s terrible to have this happen to our beautiful parks because there are other ways to express our voices and concerns,” said Montrose resident Amber Morgan. “I mean, Christopher Columbus wasn’t a saint, but we can be better.”

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