By: Kyle James | 08-14-2017 | News
Photo credit: WTVR.com

Protesters Surround Robert. E. Lee's Statue Demanding Its Removal

Late Sunday night another protest was underway in Charlottesville, it is unclear if the demonstrators have an official affiliation at this time but their message is clear, "take down the monuments." At 7:49 p.m. est, Richmond Police Twitter account tweeted "Protest currently underway on W. Broad St. and Laurel. Demonstrators marching westbound. Roads blocked." Sure enough, the group of protesters made their way toward Monument Ave. despite police cars blocking the road. The Richmond Police Twitter updated their PSA with this tweet, "Demonstrators continuing westbound toward Harrison. WB lanes blocked."

Fast forward a couple hours and in a video posted on the same Richmond Police Twitter account, police again warned: "Crowd is marching EB on W. Broad St. crossing Belvidere." The video shows a large group of protesters marching towards the Robert E. Lee monument and shouting "Tear the racist statues down." Once they reached the giant statue of Robert E. Lee astride his horse, they surrounded it and one demonstrator took the opportunity to climb on top and tie a flag to the statue while police could only stand by and watch.

In a video of the scene, the man tries to climb the giant statue and falls but manages to ascend its giant base and tie the flag to the horses leg before climbing down. It is unclear from the blurry video available exactly what the flag says but it was placed by a demonstrator protesting it's existence and demanding it's removal. The march has come to an end as of 12:20 a.m. est.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Demonstrators continuing westbound toward Harrison. WB lanes blocked. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RVA?src=hash">#RVA</a> <a href="https://t.co/v098f4LUWd">pic.twitter.com/v098f4LUWd</a></p>&mdash; Richmond Police (@RichmondPolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/RichmondPolice/status/896922168457646081">August 14, 2017</a></blockquote>

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Crowd is marching EB on W. Broad St. crossing Belvidere. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RVA?src=hash">#RVA</a> <a href="https://t.co/yugPYvviaX">pic.twitter.com/yugPYvviaX</a></p>&mdash; Richmond Police (@RichmondPolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/RichmondPolice/status/896944592985214976">August 14, 2017</a></blockquote>

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Source: http://wtvr.com/2017/08/13/protesters-block-streets-near-vcu/

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Anonymous No. 6562 2017-08-14 : 10:42

Well, I don't see why they demanded its removal; the local government has already announced its intent on removing the statue.

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