Authorities are searching for possible suspects after a sandstone obelisk dedicated to the 19th-century frontiersman Kit Carson was toppled outside of a federal courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Thursday.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, this is the second time a monument has been destroyed in Santa Fe since 2020. Protestors topped the city’s Soldiers’ Monument on the Santa Fe Plaza on Indigenous Peoples Day nearly three years ago, according to the report.
The monument was dedicated to Carson in 1885. The Santa Fe New Mexican recounts that Carson “fought Native Americans several times during his lifetime. He settled in New Mexico and served as a federal Indian Agent responsible for some tribes and pueblos in what then was the New Mexico Territory.”
In 2020, city officials placed a plywood box around the monument, dedicated to Carson, meant to protect it from protestors who wanted the obelisk taken down.
Last week, authorities said that the monument was taken out by someone who was believed to be driving a white GMC pickup truck.
“At about 9:30 p.m., a New Mexican reporter observed the truck inches from the wooden barrier, with pieces of the monument nearby and a cable attached to the vehicle leading toward the downed obelisk,” the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.
Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber, who previously called for the monument’s removal after several threats of protests and violence surfaced in the community, condemned the actions taken by the protestor.
“I’m outraged and I want those who did this to be caught and held accountable,” he said in a statement Thursday night. “Santa Fe Police are working with other law enforcement agencies to investigate this cowardly act. There is no place for this kind of criminal conduct in our community. We should all condemn it.”
Because the movement was on the federal courthouse’s property, federal investigators will primarily handle the case.
Carson’s monument has been defaced several times in the past. Just last year, someone graffitied the sandstone and box surrounding it. In another instance nearly three years ago, protestors spray painted “Stolen Land” in bright red paint on the base of the obelisk.
