Confederate statue vandalized in Ohio

Police in Columbus, Ohio, are investigating after a Confederate statue in a Civil War cemetery was vandalized overnight Tuesday.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that the bronze statue of a Confederate soldier in Camp Chase cemetery was toppled from its perch on an arch and decapitated. 

The vandals took the statue’s head. Police have not yet identified any suspects.

{mosads}“Our best hope is whoever took the head puts photos of it on social media,” Columbus Police Lt. Clifton Dean said, according to the Dispatch. 

The vandalism comes as a national debate rages over Confederate statues and monuments in the wake of the violent white nationalist protests in Charlottesville, Va., earlier this month.

White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups gathered in the Virginia college town nominally to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. 

Since then, other cities have moved to take down statues dedicated to Confederate leaders. In Baltimore last week, for example, the city’s mayor had four statues quietly removed overnight.

A statue of Lee at Duke University also became a target of vandalism last week. The university removed the statue soon after. 

According to the Dispatch, police in Columbus have been keeping watch over Camp Chase cemetery amid the heightened tensions over Confederate statues. The vandalism is believed to have occurred sometime between midnight and 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Camp Chase was originally established in 1861 as a training camp for Union soldiers, but soon became a prisoner of war camp, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The cemetery holds the remains of nearly 2,200 Confederate soldiers.