On the evening of Independence Day, a crowd in Sacramento tore down a statue of St. Junipero Serra, set fire to it, and beat it with sledgehammers.

The statue, on the grounds of California’s state capitol, was the third figure of the missionary saint to be torn down by crowds in California in recent weeks. Sacramento’s bishop responded by saying that Serra worked to promote the dignity of indigenous people.

A large crowd gathered around the statue in Capitol Park at around 9 p.m. on July 4, according to media reports.

One man burned the face of the Serra statue with an ignited spray from an aerosol can, before it was pulled from its base using tow straps. After the statue fell, members of the crowd struck the statue with a sledgehammer and other objects, dancing and jumping upon it.

The crowd chanted “Rise up, my people, rise up,” while destroying the statue.

They dispersed when California Highway Patrol officers intervened, the Sacramento Bee reported….

The Sacramento Bee reported that some protestors on the Capitol grounds carried signs saying “decolonize the streets,” and that advocates of the Black Lives Matter movement and American Indian Movement referred amid their protests to Independence Day as the “Farce of July….”

The above comes from a July 5 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.