US: Raleigh protesters pull down Confederate statues

Protesters in the US state of North Carolina pulled down parts of a Confederate monument on Friday night and hanged one of the toppled statues from a lamp post.

Demonstrators used a strap to pull down two statues of Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk near the state capitol in downtown Raleigh, according to footage taken by Leigh Tauss, News Editor for INDY Week.

Police officers earlier in the evening had foiled the protesters' previous attempt to use ropes to topple the statues.

But after the officers cleared the area, protesters mounted the obelisk and were able to take them down.

They then dragged the statues along a street and used a rope to hang one of the figures by its neck from a lamp post.

The other statue was dragged to a local courthouse.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of demonstrators had marched through downtown Raleigh and Durham to protest against police brutality and to celebrate Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.

Numerous Confederate statues have been vandalized or torn down across the South in recent weeks following the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes.

(Representative Image)