NASSAU- A man has been arrested for vandalizing a statue of Christopher Columbus.
Passers by recorded the protester as he damaged the bust with a sledgehammer.
By the time police arrived, the monument only had one leg and one hand.
Police said the one-man demolition crew was found in unlawful possession of a bulletproof vest.
Columbus is credited with discovering the new world when he landed on San Salvador in 1492. A statue was erected in his honor in 1830 by Lord Carmichael in front of Government House.
Decades later, he was considered a villain for the genocide of indigenous people.
Last year an online petition calling for the monument’s removal got more than 9,000 signatures. At the time, National Heroes Committee Chairman, Reverend Sebastian Campbell, said Bahamians “were too passive to take action.”
That statue wasn’t a true likeness of Columbus. Columbus was a short ugly Italian not the Nordic specimen the statue was. And Columbus never sported a beard. The people in that country have been duped for 200 years.