Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Wednesday activated the state’s National Guard to protect state properties after a night of violence that included the toppling of two statues outside the state capitol, one of which commemorated an abolitionist hero of the US Civil War.
Protesters also attacked a state senator, threw a Molotov cocktail into a government building and attempted to break into the Capitol on Tuesday night, only to be repelled by pepper spray from police stationed inside.
The violence broke out as a group of 200 to 300 people protested the arrest of a man who shouted at restaurant customers through a megaphone while carrying a baseball bat.
On Wednesday night, about 40 people gathered outside the county jail where the man was being held, calling for his release.
A crowd of about 100 people congregated outside the Capitol, where one of the statues used to stand, as Madison police watched. There was no sign of the National Guard.
Evers, who toured the damage from Tuesday night and said that the violence was in “stark contrast” to earlier protests, said he was activating the National Guard “to make sure people can exercise their First Amendment rights, while ensuring the safety of members of the public and state buildings and infrastructure.”
“If your goal was to advance social justice and policing reforms in the state of Wisconsin, and making sure systemic racism is a thing of the past, you failed,” Evers said of the protesters in an interview on WTMJ-AM.
State lawmakers and others criticized Evers and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway for not moving more quickly on Tuesday to quell the violence.
“The mob has become very bold,” Madison Alderman Paul Skidmore said. “They see they can get away with a little, and they inch forward more and more. [Downtown Madison] is a battle zone right now and I fear for my city.”
Wisconsin Senator Tim Carpenter was allegedly assaulted after taking a cellphone video of protesters.
“Punched/kicked in the head, neck, ribs,” Carpenter wrote on Twitter. “Innocent people are going to get killed.”
One of the statues toppled, decapitated and dragged into a lake about a kilometer away was of Civil War colonel Hans Christian Heg. He was an anti-slavery activist and leader of an anti-slave catcher militia in Wisconsin who fought for the Union and died from injuries suffered during the Battle of Chickamauga.
The other statue taken down represents Wisconsin’s motto, “Forward.”
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