Confederate monument along Arizona highway damaged overnight

PHOENIX — A monument dedicated to former Confederate President Jefferson Davis alongside an Arizona highway was damaged overnight.

Photos of the damaged monument near U.S. 60 and Peralta Road in Gold Canyon began hitting social media in the wee hours of Thursday morning.

The monument was covered in tar and feathers, traditionally used to humiliate someone in public. Law enforcement did not return an immediate request for comment.

A nationwide push to remove Confederate monuments has been renewed in the last week after a violence broke out between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The supremacists were protesting the planned removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee on the University of Virginia grounds.

Arizona has six Confederate monuments, including one in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza that was spray-painted early Thursday morning.

Gov. Doug Ducey condemned white supremacist groups earlier this week, but said the decision to remove the monuments would be left to the public.

“We have a public process for this,” Ducey said. “If the public wants to be engaged in this, I’d invite them to get engaged in it.”

Marshall Trimble, a state historian, said Arizona was briefly a Confederate territory and that a Confederate force occupied Tucson for a few weeks during the Civil War. A small battle took place near Picacho Peak.

Arizona joined the union in 1912.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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