US to deploy special police units to protect statues, monuments

President Donald Trump’s administration has put special law enforcement teams in place to protect monuments across the United States that it believes could be vandalised by protesters over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday.

The announcement did not provide details on the teams’ sizes or makeup, how much the deployment cost, or how they would respond to any perceived threats. It also did not say exactly which memorials would be guarded or whether specific threats were made.

Trump this year will view fireworks celebrating US independence at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. He has taken a hard line on removing public statues commemorating figures from history, which he has called “beautiful”, and has threatened to use force on protesters defacing memorials.

The executive order he signed last week on memorials established a task force of law enforcement agencies that will gauge the potential for civil unrest or destruction of federal monuments and could “surge” responses to possible threats, according to the department.

My Executive Order to protect Monuments, Statues etc., IS IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT. In excess of a 10 year prison term. Please do not put yourself in jeopardy. Many people now under arrest!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020

“While the department respects every American’s right to protest peacefully, violence and civil unrest will not be tolerated,” Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said in the announcement. “We won’t stand idly by while violent anarchists and rioters seek not only to vandalise and destroy the symbols of our nation, but to disrupt law and order and sow chaos in our communities.”

Earlier this week, Wolf said the effort was being coordinated by several branches of the DHS including the Federal Protective Service, US Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration.

The police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man, sparked national demonstrations against racial injustice last month. Since then states, cities and private universities and museums have begun taking down monuments and other memorials considered racist. Many targeted statues commemorate military figures from the Confederacy, the losing side of the 1861-1865 US Civil War, which seceded largely to maintain the enslavement of Black people.

Protesters have also attacked federal monuments, most notably attempting to pull down a statue by the White House of President Andrew Jackson, a one-time slaveholder whose administration is remembered for the Trail of Tears that killed thousands of Native Americans.