NEW
ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans removed a statue honoring Confederate
General P.G.T. Beauregard early Wednesday morning, marking the third of
four historical monuments the city slated for removal because they were
deemed racially offensive.
Crews
laboring under the glare of floodlights began the work of detaching the
bottom of the 14-foot-tall statue - a bronze likeness of Beauregard on
horseback - from its pedestal on Tuesday night while some 200 bystanders
looked on near the entrance of City Park.
Shortly
after 3 a.m. CDT (0800 GMT) on Wednesday, a crane lifted the statue
from its base after workers had cleared the area. A stone slab with
Beauregard's name on it also was removed, but the statue's empty base
was left at the site.
The
crowd of onlookers, about evenly divided between statue supporters and
opponents, were mostly subdued, though a few individuals shouted at one
another across the police barricade separating them. Some members of the
pro-statue group waved Confederate flags.
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