This happened in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQNHplU0kig
The story from The Mercury News:
Statues of Fr. Junipero Serra, Francis Scott Key and Ulysses S. Grant were toppled at Golden Gate Park on Friday.
A group of roughly 100 people pulled down the statues about 8 or 9 p.m., an eyewitness said.
One video posted to Twitter showed the group using a strap to topple the statue of Serra. The statue, according to the University of California, was first unveiled in 1907.
Serra’s legacy is complicated. The mission system he founded and led played a role in the founding of modern California, but many Native Americans blame him for the destruction of their culture and the decimation of their ancestors from European diseases, as well as for the brutal punishment he inflicted on those who tried to run away.
For those reasons, Stanford University in 2018 scrubbed Serra’s name from many of its buildings.
And this is happening in another California city:
The statue of a Roman Catholic saint, Junipero Serra, will be removed from public display over accusations that statues of the missionary reflect oppression of indigenous peoples, according to city officials.
The mayor of Ventura, California, representatives from the Barbareno/Venureno Band of Mission Indians, and a pastor of the Mission San Buenaventura issued a joint statement agreeing to take down a bronzed, 9-foot statue of Serra and have it “moved to a more appropriate non-public location” on Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Times.
