Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh is defending the clandestine removal of Confederate statues in the city last night as the right decision to keep her city safe. At a news conference Wednesday, Pugh said the city charter states if the mayor feels she needs to protect the public she has the right to keep the community safe.
She added that there have been enough speeches and grandstanding and that she felt the best way to remove the statues was overnight with no fanfare. She said any city with Confederate statues is concerned about violence. Pugh said she spoke with the City Council on Monday and expressed the need to move quickly and quietly to get it done, given the climate of the nation.
A white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend turned violent and a woman was killed when an alleged white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. She said the removal process gained momentum in June after speaking with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who removed similar statues from his city in May.