DESPITE having a U.S. federal holiday on the second Monday of every October, there’s widespread controversy over honoring Christopher Columbus as a hero.

They hacked off his head in Boston, threw him in a lake in Richmond, drenched him in red paint in Miami, and dragged him down from his pedestal in St. Paul.

Protesters in cities around the United States have been tearing down, defacing and otherwise vandalizing statues of Christopher Columbus as an offshoot of the protests over George Floyd’s death.

In St. Paul, news crews stood just a few meters away recording video as protesters tied a rope around a statue and pulled it down from its base at the steps of the State Capitol on  Wednesday. A group of demonstrators had promised earlier in the day to tear down the statue. After tying a rope to the statue and dragging it down, the protesters reportedly danced and spit on it.

In Boston, police opened an investigation Wednesday after the namesake statue in the city’s Christopher Columbus Park was beheaded overnight. Photos from the scene show the statue surrounded in police tape and Columbus’ head on the ground next to an evidence marker.

In downtown Miami, a Columbus statue had its head and face painted red, according to images posted on Twitter by WSVN reporter Franklin White. There is also a movement that calls for the replacement of Columbus Day with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”(SD-Agencies)