As UNC Issues 3 Arrest Warrants Over Confederate Statue’s Toppling, Board Member Says It Will Be Restored

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus police have issued arrest warrants for three people tied to the toppling last Monday of the prominent Confederate statue known as Silent Sam, multiple news outlets reported on Friday.

The three face misdemeanor charges of riot and defacing of a public monument. They were not publicly identified, as they have yet to be arrested, but none are affiliated with the university, a police spokesman told The News & Observer, a Raleigh newspaper. The spokesman said more arrests are possible.

UNC officials have asked the State Bureau of Investigation to assist the campus police with the case.

Protesters tore down the statue on Monday night at the climax of a larger protest that had started hours earlier. Activists hailed the toppling as long overdue.

The controversial statue of a Confederate soldier was erected in 1913 near the campus entrance. It has been a political flashpoint on the campus, and calls for its removal intensified after last year’s deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

University officials have condemned the protesters’ actions with varying degrees of severity, and plans for the statue are unclear. It’s currently being stored in an unknown location. Carol L. Folt, UNC’s chancellor, said on Thursday that it would be “irresponsible” for her to say what the university planned to do with Silent Sam.

But one UNC-system board member said on Friday that it’s not a difficult question to answer. Thomas C. Goolsby, a former Republican state lawmaker, said North Carolina law requires the monument to be returned to its place on the Chapel Hill campus within 90 days.

The Rise and Fall of Silent Sam

Silent Sam, a statue of a Confederate soldier, dominated the main entrance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for more than a century, despite decades of protests. But suddenly, in August 2018, the statue was yanked down by protesters. And in January 2019 the campus’s chancellor, Carol L. Folt, removed the statue’s pedestal and other remnants. Here’s how Silent Sam moved from dominance to disappearance.

• UNC’s Silent Sam Settlement Sparked a Backlash. Now a Judge Has Overturned the Deal.
• UNC’s Silent Sam Settlement Was Reached Quickly. The Blowback Might Last Longer.
• UNC Will Give Silent Sam to a Confederate Group — Along With a $2.5-Million Trust

“It’s very clear-cut in the law,” Goolsby said in an interview. The statute, enacted in 2015, protects “objects of remembrance” on public land. If a monument is “temporarily relocated,” the law states, it should be “returned to its original location within 90 days of completion of the project that required its temporary removal.”

Goolsby was not at the protest but watched many of the videos of it that were posted online. He said campus police officers had chosen not to act. “Police stood idly by, allowing people to climb up on the statue with absolutely no interference,” he said. “It’s completely outrageous.”

“Who,” he asked, “directed them to do nothing?”

Goolsby said his office had been flooded with calls this week from Chapel Hill graduates and “concerned citizens” who are appalled over the statue’s toppling and how officials and law-enforcement officers handled the event.

Harry Smith, chair of the UNC-system board, said on Wednesday that the board would hire an outside firm to review the response.

“It’s just most disturbing,” Goolsby said. “For the life of me I cannot understand what they were doing and not doing, and under whose direction.”

Follow Claire Hansen on Twitter at @clairechansen, or email her at claire.hansen@chronicle.com. Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.