Fourth person arrested after toppling of Durham County Confederate monument

[barbtries]

Source: News and Observer

The Durham County Sheriff's Office arrested a fourth person in connection with activists who toppled a Confederate statue during a demonstration Monday night.

Deputies arrested Peter Gull Gilbert, 36, of Durham, Wednesday afternoon.

The Durham County Sheriff’s Office arrested Dante Emmanuel Strobino, 35, and Ngoc Loan Tran, 24. Wednesday morning when they were attending a court hearing for Takiyah Fatima Thompson, 22, who was arrested on the same charges Tuesday afternoon.

Their charges include:

▪ Disorderly conduct by injury to a statue (Class II misdemeanor).

▪ Damage to real property (statue as a fixture (Class I misdemeanor).

▪ 14-288.2(c) Participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class H felony).

▪ 14-288.2(e) inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class F felony).

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article167478592.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article167478592.html#storylink=cpy

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article167478592.html

---

Posted per request. there is very little else at the link

[Hortensis]

1. Okay. Of course. Vandalism is is a crime. Parents need to have some

serious talks with their kids about how principled stands become, and get interpreted as, hooliganism.

[msongs]

2. meanwhile us cops kill people w no consequences

[LenaBaby61]

9. Meanwhile us cops kill people w no consequences.

+1,000

[Honeycombe8]

17. That's not true. nt

[paleotn]

22. Yes, it most certainly is true.

[Honeycombe8]

24. No, it's not. nt

[paleotn]

27. .......

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/police-fired-rehired/?utm_term=.1f3895385705

Or do you consider WaPo "fake news".

Michael T. Slager, who murdered Walter Scott, could only be convicted of violation of civil rights. Sounds like Mississippi Burning to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/us/michael-slager-walter-scott-north-charleston-shooting.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/police-shooting-trial-philando-castile.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/17/us/tulsa-police-shooting-trial/index.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30339943

Should I go on?

[dchill]

44. +1000

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. 4 arrested for topping a confederate statue. how many arrested for the mess in Ch'ville?

this article (2 days old) says 8, at least 2 of which were counter protestors (not the Nazi scum). Fair and balanced? NOT.

http://wric.com/2017/08/14/court-documents-6-out-of-8-arrested-in-charlottesville-protests-from-out-of-state/

[barbtries]

7. yeah.

i find justice is pretty lopsided these days.

[Duppers]

4. "Participation in a riot" ! Wow.

Reads like a Sinclair publication but it's actually now McClatchy!
Catering to local political climate?

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article122270569.html

Yes, definitely one-sided. Monsters get a pass and folks on the right side of history are locked up.


Barbtries, thanks for this OP.

[barbtries]

12. you're welcome.

they've been okay editorializing on the abuses of power coming out of Raleigh since the republicans took the state over a few years ago. i don't think they're catering to the climate though, i think they're creating it.

anyway i generally get my NC news from progressive sites that post on FB. i cannot even bear to watch the local TV news at all anymore, since January. they act as if it's normal that trump is president; i really cannot deal with that.

[Duppers]

13. I watch only 1 or 2 local news shows a month.

Depending whether a hurricane is coming into the coast.

So, I totally understand.

[Not Ruth]

5. Comrades?

Link to tweet

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10214009610020168&id=1408427636&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FbL8rd503c5&_rdr

[socialist_n_TN]

57. Workers' World Party is Marxist.............

Takiyah is a member. I'm not sure what flavor Marxist she is, but "comrade" would be appropriate for her. Probably some of the others too. The socialist/anarchist groups have been VERY active in the vanguard of most of these struggles.

[Not Ruth]

58. Sounds Russian

[Duppers]

6. How could this be interpreted as hooliganism?!

Authorities knew the motivation here. They KNEW. It says a lot about current southern culture and Red State voters. These authoritarian cops voted for TRump, I'm sure.


(Folks, don't scream at me for taking a swipe - I was born, grew up, and live in the South. There are still pockets of sanity here and there. Many good southern DUers here too.)

[barbtries]

10. i'm living here in NC.

one of my best friends said she disagreed with removing the statues and hoped that "doesn't make me a racist."

well i wanted to continue the conversation later i had to leave at the time, but never did yet. she's born and raised in Western NC and i think there is a strong resistance to giving up their civil war "heroes" and admitting that they weren't actually heroes at all. they were fools who bought and sold and owned human beings and caused the deaths of some 600,000 people to preserve their ability to do that. Something totally unequivocally wrong.

As a matter of fact our conversation though it was not complete, cemented my feelings that the statues need to go. They're symbols of a false history and belong in museums accompanied by the real history of the civil war.

i'm in the triangle (pretty liberal area) but it has not escaped me in my almost 10 years living here that many southerners are still litigating the civil war and think the wrong side won.

[Duppers]

15. Three years ago

Hubs and I had to have a strong attitude adjustment talk with my nephew, who's normally a Dem on all other issues. Brainwashed by his good buds in Chattanooga on Civil War details. Hubs laid into him bigly, with references at hand - hubs is a CW history buff.

Southerners feel they need something to be prideful about. We have many good attributes here, that I'm proud of, without the dragging in the false narratives about the Civil War. And, of course, the despicable white pride shit.

[barbtries]

28. if i get the chance

that is exactly how i plan to approach it with my friend. look at the history, look at the history of the civil war and look at the history of these statues, most of which were created and placed in the 20th century, as a celebration of racism and a rejection of civil rights. But i agree with you totally, "Southerners feel they need something to be prideful about."

[GulfCoast66]

30. The problem is we were taught lies

Grew up in Louisiana and was taught slavery was not the cause of the war so it was easy to canonize the confed generals.

All I had to do was read the declarations of succession from the southern states to realize it was about slavery. Hell, the founders of the confederacy tell us that is the reason. That changed my thinking and I now favor removing them.

[JonLP24]

32. I was taught the same thing in Arizona

In social studies the explanation was "The Civil War wasn't about slavery, Lincoln wanted to preserve the union"

It wasn't until I got to DU I learned about the Articles of Succession.

[barbtries]

33. even in CA

i had a friend use the states rights bullshit on me. it's bullshit and that you were actually and literally taught a false history is despicable! i don't think i was taught much at all in grammar and high school about the civil war. i'm an autodidact and read constantly or maybe i'd be taking that same attitude.

[GulfCoast66]

35. It was in the 70s and we learned a lot about the war between the states!

They actually called it that in some of the history books! Not all the time but enough. I just was never shown the articles of succession and slavery was not mentioned as a cause.

Young folks who grew up with internet do not realize how dependent we were on our teachers and school district to learn things.

[barbtries]

36. that's so true.

war between the states...oh boy.

[xor]

11. I don't trust the motivation of some of these groups.

I can't help but feel that outside groups (russians etc..) are exploiting the chaos of the recent times by trying to rile up extremists on all sides. These far leftist groups never have anything critical to say of Russia and certain other countries similar to the current batch of right-wing extremists.

I am cautious of anything that seems destructive and perhaps counter productive. Right now we at the point where there is a lot of public support for legally either tearing down these statues or moving them to more appropriate locations.

[Duppers]

16. Nope.

[Honeycombe8]

20. Destruction is not a good thing. And it's criminal in these circumstances.

Those statues belong to the city or state. It is theirs to do with what they want. They can scrap it, sell it, put it in a museum, have it modified to be a different statue. If they can profit from it, the citizens of that community stand to have their city get a profit to apply to debt for everyone in the community.

But it's not one person's decision to destroy someone else's property.

[yardwork]

23. Durham is a very progressive community.

I can't speak for the sheriff's motivation, but it may be purely a matter of enforcing laws.

Personally, I disagree with this way of removing the damn statues.

I feel badly for the people arrested. I'm not angry with my sheriff, though. There are better ways to get rid of these symbols of hate.

[barbtries]

37. i think they've been overcharged

and the sheriffs have gone after them with a gusto they don't seem to be exhibiting in catching the people who mobbed and beat the guy in Charlottesville. i know it's 2 different states and departments and i don't think they were right to take it down like that, but application of the law should be equal and commensurate with the crime.

[Yupster]

39. They made a political point by destroying property that was not theirs to destroy

They need to stand up to the consequences now and be proud of what they did and take the punishment.

[LanternWaste]

49. There are also a few good people in the north and still some pockets of sanity here and there as wel

There are also a few good people in the north and still some pockets of sanity here and there as well. Many good northern DUers here too.

[Scurrilous]

8. Who says the statue is worth in excess of $1500.00?

To me it isn't worth @$!#.

[haele]

14. Recycling value of one that large - if it was a well made casting - was probably around $3K - $5K.

Maybe as high as $10K, if there was a lot of structural support inside.

If it was cheap - and honestly, it looked pretty cheap the way it sort of bent after it came down - it would probably be around $1500 worth of bronze.

Haele

[Honeycombe8]

19. Why would you place a "recycling" value on it? Maybe they were going to move it to a museum.

It's a monument, some may consider it art or of historical significance.

In any case, it's up to experts to put a price on statues and monuments. They aren't cheap.

[haele]

21. Well, had to do with the comment before mine.

There's the objective value in materials and the subjective sentimental (i.e., historical or artistic) value.

The objective value is that of the bronze used in the statue, and whether or not it was created as a unique statue, or if it was one of the many mass-produced interchangeable "union soldier/confederate soldier" statues of the 1890's - 1920's that any town that had a militia that fought in the Civil War bought, or were put in grave areas that fallen soldiers/veterans were buried in.

The statue I saw that had been pulled down looked to be one of those mass market statues. Subjectively, it's got little value; it looks like any one of the thousands of cheap Jim Crow era civic ornaments sold to Southern towns to give a gathering point for the local KKK to rally to start from.

Very unlike the crafted statue of RE Lee on his horse that the Charlottesville Supremacists were using as a rally point.
The Lee statue would go better in a Confederate cemetery than out in a public venue where a-holes can use it to intimidate others with their dumbf*** "superiority" complex. Or melted down - but then, the racist khaki-clad babies will continue to throw tantrums about their Lost Cause heritage being taken away from them by those mean liberals and uppity - well, you know what they call Minorities.

Haele

[Honeycombe8]

25. Whatever its value, it's not cheap. No statue is cheap. It belonged to the community

to profit from, if they could.

They shouldn't have brought that down. That was going too far. I've noticed that when people get carried away, they rarely destroy their own property.

[haele]

26. Ah, I see. It was the pulling down that upset you more than my "value of a statue" comment.

Whether or not I approve of mob actions, you didn't know.
BTW, I hate Mobs.
Dad had a saying - "To find the average intelligence of any Mob, take the lowest value found among the participants and divide that by half.

Haele

[Honeycombe8]

29. It's the property destruction. The crime. Mobs get carried away. nt

[Honeycombe8]

18. If you had to make it, you would. First...buy the materials.

Then get to work. It's gonna take some time.

[JonLP24]

31. How bad are those felonies?

Don't understand those letters. In my state it is Class 1 Felony and lower to 6 before class 1 misdemeanor..

[barbtries]

34. i don't know either.

but i don't doubt that they could be looking at prison time and of course a permanent felony on their record, fucking up their chances of getting a job or into a good school - it's serious. i hope the ACLU or SPLC will represent them. it was wrong what they did but there are extenuating circumstances, like 500 years of oppression for instance.

[Massacure]

38. I found a North Carolina sentencing chart with a Google search

It was actually easier to find than I thought it would be:

http://www.nccourts.org/Courts/CRS/Councils/spac/Sentencing/Punishment.asp

A judge picks a minimum sentence, and then a maximum sentence is automatically derived using a formula. If I'm reading their documents right, it looks like in the best case the sentence for a Class H Felony would be 10-21 months of "intermediate punishment" and in the worst case 20-33 months of "active punishment" (imprisonment).

[barbtries]

40. that makes me feel better

but they'll still have the "felon" attached to their name if they're convicted. so, we'll see how it plays out

[Blue Idaho]

41. Where's the "Kickstarter" page

For bail and legal council? I'd throw in on that deal.

[barbtries]

42. i don't know

i haven't seen anything on my fb about it and i subscribe to practically all the left leaning orgs i know of around here (I live in Durham). maybe i'll browse around tomorrow and get back to you on that

[Blue Idaho]

43. Thanks! Nt.

[christx30]

45. There may not be a kickstarter.

They'be said they aren't allowing any funding as a result of a lawsuit or judgement. This happened after all that gay wedding and pizza stuff in Arkansas last year.

[Blue Idaho]

48. Got it - thanks! nt.

[barbtries]

46. found this on twitter:

http://www.thefader.com/2017/08/16/help-takiyah-thompson-durham-protestor

[Blue Idaho]

47. Thank You! nt.

[Marengo]

50. As a point of interest, she is a member (apparently Durham chapter leader) of an organization...

That openly defends and supports the Kim regime of North Korea

http://www.workers.org/2012/world/peoples_korea_0126/

[barbtries]

51. really?!

that's wild.

[kwassa]

52. Not a good choice .

Workers World Party. Communist, essentially.

However, during the 20s, 30s, and 40s the party in the US that supported black civil rights the most was the Communist Party USA.

They paid for the defense of the Scottsboro Boys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Party_USA_and_African_Americans

[barbtries]

53. i read their position on DPRK on the webpage

http://www.workers.org/2017/08/14/self-defense-and-the-dprk/
posted on 14Aug2017

i think they miss a very important point, which is that the people of North Korea don't make decisions about their future. they don't address the stone cold fact that the country is run by an insane dictator and the people are already horribly oppressed. but their point that when the US gets countries or governments to disarm it often ends up costing them more than if they had not, is well taken, and was something i heard recently on a much more mainstream platform though i cannot recall the particulars at the moment.

i also read her interview with Democracy Now! and still don't agree that the statue should have been brought down by force. what i will say is that she represents a lot of people who have been systematically and catastrophically oppressed for centuries. I don't think she should go to prison.

don't think we've heard the last from her either: go Takiyah Thompson! she's trying to demonstrate that it is the people who have the power and they must wield it.

[Marengo]

54. I find it odd that any Marxist-Leninist would defend the nationalist & hierarchical character...

Of Juche with a clear conscience. Honestly, I think the WWP is adopting the enemyenemy friend position as it's difficult to argue convincingly that Juche is Marxist-Leninist or worthy of inclusion in that ideological family. Having been closely associated with a Maoist organization in my youth, I've seen this dishonest tactic before and it's one of the things that drove me away.

At any rate, I don't think she deserves prison or anything more than a fine perhaps. I just find it rather ironic that she would feel free to take an action that in the DPRK would likely receive an unspeakably brutal response.

[barbtries]

56. yeah, no kidding

she wouldn't survive there. in relative terms even now with this gawdawful president and republicans, we are better off than the people of N Korea

[DeminPennswoods]

55. What they did was stupid and a crime

I doubt anyone on DU would be happy if white nationalists had toppled a statue honoring Union soldiers and no one was arrested/charged.

[Not Ruth]

59. How soon until the Nazis attack Grant's Tomb?

"On his radio and television show You Bet Your Life, comedian Groucho Marx often asked contestants, "Who was buried in Grant's Tomb?" The riddle is based on the use of the word "buried." The correct answer is "no one," since Grant and his wife are entombed in sarcophagi above ground in an atrium rather than being buried in the ground. However, Marx often accepted the answer "Grant," nonetheless, and awarded a consolation prize to those who gave it. He used the question, among several other comically simple ones, to ensure that everyone won a prize on the show."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant%27s_Tomb