A man who drove the car that helped pull down the statue of a Civil War hero and abolitionist outside of the Wisconsin state Capitol during a night of protests in 2020 has been sentenced to six months in jail.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A man who drove the car that helped pull down the statue of a Civil War hero and abolitionist outside of the Wisconsin state Capitol during a night of protests in 2020 has been sentenced to six months in jail.
The statute of Hans Christian Heg was toppled and beheaded during a protest in downtown Madison in June 2020 against police brutality. Protests began a month earlier over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and flared up again that June after Madison police arrested a Black activist.
The restored statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg outside of the Wisconsin State Capitol (WISC-TV/Channel3000)MADISON, Wis. — A Beloit man charged in the 2020 vandalism of the Col. Hans Christian Heg statue on the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds was sentenced Wednesday to one year of probation, online court records show. Rodney Clendening, 36, had faced a misdemeanor charge of theft…
Kelsey D. Nelson, 33, was sentenced for his role in damaging the Heg statue and for looting a nearby jewelry store about a month earlier, the Wisconsin State Journal reported Friday.
Nelson apologized in court, saying he was “someone who was trying to make a difference.”
“I was just a person who woke up and saw the injustice done to a man named George Floyd,” Nelson said. “Am I going to say what I did was right? I am not.”
Nelson was also ordered to pay $5,000 to the jewelry store, a cost to be shared with two other people, and $2,500 to the state Department of Administration for the damage to the Heg statue, a cost to be shared with four others.
MADISON, Wis. — A statue torn down by protesters in the summer of 2020 was rededicated over the weekend almost 100 years after the statue was first gifted to state leaders. During Sunday’s rededication ceremony Col. Hans Christian Heg’s descendants and people he inspired gathered outside of the Wisconsin State Capitol to honor the state’s highest-ranking soldier to die in…
Most of the original Heg statue has been restored, but the head was stolen and had to be recreated. A man convicted of misdemeanor theft for stealing the head has since returned it to the state.
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