#Confederate, Columbus statues destroyed across US amid protests

Fires burned, a band played and people danced as a crowd dismantled a Virginia Confederate monument — one of several destroyed this week across the country amid protests over the police-involved death of George Floyd.

In total, four Confederate statues on the Portsmouth monument — believed to stand at a site where slaves were once punished at a whipping post — were beheaded, and one was pulled down using a tow rope Wednesday night, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

After one statue was beheaded, the crowd erupted in cheers and a demonstrator standing at its base can be heard yelling, “Who wants to pull this b—h down?,” video from the scene shows.

A Portsmouth protester was seriously injured as one of the statues fell, hitting him in the head. He was taken to the hospital after his head was cut open and he lost consciousness, according to the Virginian-Pilot.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, vandals targeted a statue of Confederate Gen. Lafayette McLaws at Forsyth Park, WSAV reported.

On Thursday, the statue was discovered with a white hood over its head and a black fist spray-painted on it.

In downtown Miami on Wednesday, people vandalized a Christopher Columbus statue with a red spray-painted fist, the letters “BLM” for Black Lives Matter, Floyd’s name and the Communist Party symbol, a hammer and sickle, WFOR-TV reported.

A statue of Juan Ponce de Leon, believed to have come with Columbus to discover the New World, was also vandalized, according to the report.

Things got heated and several people were arrested after clashes with police.

In Minnesota, a group that vowed to tear down a statue of Columbus standing on State Capitol grounds did so at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The group tossed a rope around the monument, tugged it to the ground and then danced and spat on it, KMSP-TV reported.

Earlier Wednesday, a Columbus statue in Boston’s North End was beheaded.