BENTONVILLE -- Police are investigating vandalism to a Confederate statue on the downtown square in Bentonville.
Gene Page, police spokesman, said the Police Department received a complaint about the vandalism at 10:45 p.m. Saturday. City workers later noticed that the bottom of the soldier's rifle was missing.
The vandalism is under investigation, Page said.
Parks and Recreation maintenance staff members noticed the damage Wednesday and told Crant Osborne, maintenance supervisor. The missing piece had not been found as of Thursday, and there was no cost estimate for the damage, he said.
The statue is made of a granite-type material, he said. It stands in the middle of the square and is surrounded by a circular fountain.
Sgt. Shannon Jenkins, a spokesman for the Benton County sheriff's office, said there is no video of the vandalism of the statue.
Osborne said a replica cannon ball that is part of the monument was stolen in 2017, but whoever took it later left it under a park bench downtown. The stolen projectile replaced one taken around 2005 that was never found, county officials said.
The statue has been a source of controversy in recent years.
About 160 people attended a public hearing in 2017 headed by Compassion Fayetteville and the OMNI Center for Peace to discuss the statue's future.
Benton County owns the land the monument is on and has the authority to leave the statue or remove it.
Jason Hendren, a lawyer, said at the 2017 hearing that the monument was erected in 1908, more than 40 years after the Civil War. He addressed one specific point of historical contention, which was whether the statue is of James Henderson Berry, whose name is inscribed on the granite base.
Berry was a Confederate officer. He also was a lawyer in Bentonville, an Arkansas legislator, a speaker of the state House and a 4th Judicial District judge before being elected the state's 14th governor, taking office in 1883. He followed his time as governor with a 22-year stint as a U.S. senator, from 1885 to 1907, according to the Central Arkansas Library System Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
Some of the people who spoke at the 2017 forum cited his historical prominence to the area and the state as a reason to leave the statue in the square.
However, the statue isn't of Berry.
It's of a generic bearded soldier, according to the 1996 National Register of Historical Places registration form for the monument.
A Confederate monument is shown in August 2017 at the center of the Bentonville square. City workers noticed Saturday the bottom of the soldier’s rifle missing after a vandalism report.
Metro on 09/27/2019
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/sep/27/vandals-mar-city-square-statue-20190927/
2019-09-27 07:24:02Z
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