A man was shot Monday night in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after a confrontation between protesters and a group of armed individuals clashed over the statue of a Spanish conquistador.
A group of protestors in New Mexico’s largest city tried to tear down the statute of Juan de Onate, wrapping a chain around it and tugging on it. Protestors chanted “tear it down,” while one individual repeatedly swung a pickax at the base of the statute.
During the chaos, gunshots could be heard and people started yelling that someone had been shot.
Albuquerque television station KOB4 reported one of the protesters demanding the statute’s removal was shot. He was listed in critical but stable condition late Monday, according to the television station.
The demonstrators were reportedly confronted by an armed militia carrying semiautomatic weapons and calling itself the New Mexico National Guard, The Washington Post said.
Witnesses told KRQE, another Albuquerque television station, that the militia members fired shots. The station also reported protestors were calling on police for help as much as a half-hour before officers arrived.
The Albuquerque Police Department said in statement Monday that it used tear gas and flash bangs to protect officers and detain individuals involved in the shooting.
The “individuals were disarmed and taken into custody,” the statement said.
The department said the FBI is helping to investigate the incident, including interviewing people involved in the shooting.
“We are receiving reports about vigilante groups possibly instigating this violence. If this is true will be holding them accountable to the fullest extent of the law, including federal hate group designation and prosecution,” Albuquerque Police Department Chief Michael Geier said in a Tuesday statement on Twitter.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, a Democrat, said the city will remove the statue of de Oñate “in order to contain the public safety risk.”
“The shooting tonight was a tragic, outrageous and unacceptable act of violence and it has no place in our city,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our diverse community will not be deterred by acts meant to divide or silence us.”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Democrat, said she was “horrified and disgusted beyond words by the reports of violence at a protest Monday night in Albuquerque.”
“The heavily armed individuals who flaunted themselves at the protests, calling themselves a ‘civil guard,’ were there for one reason: To menace protesters, to present an unsanctioned show of unregulated force,” she said in a statement.
The violence came just hours after activists in northern New Mexico celebrated the removal of another image of Onate on public display at a community center in the town of Alcalde. County officials said they moved it to protect it from further damage.
Onate, who arrived in what is now New Mexico in 1598, is celebrated as a cultural figure among those whose ancestry descends from Spanish settlers. But others have criticized him for his brutality towards Native Americans and others.
