Ron Onesti, president of the Italian American Sports Hall of Fame, said he understood wanting to remove the statues as a short-term solution to stop the violence, “but it’s crucial the Italian American community be involved in discussions about their future…We, too, as a culture have been discriminated against and stereotyped.”

“Can Chicago afford to commit more police — perhaps hundreds of cops — to protect a statue from the wrath of political mobs, when street violence on the South and West sides claims the lives of children? I don’t think so.”

“Statues of Columbus have also been taken down in other American cities, including Boston, Richmond, Va., and St. Paul, Minn., where a group of protesters tied ropes around the statue’s neck and yanked it from its pedestal outside of the State Capitol last month.”

Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st) on Friday said he’s very saddened by the removal, and he questioned the overnight removal. He dubbed it “not the American way…It’s because a bunch of people, a bunch of socialist cancel culture people cried about it that we removed it in the middle of the night. In America, we do this by discussion.”

“The removal brought to mind Mayor Richard M. Daley’s decision to bulldoze the runways at Meigs Field in the middle of the night so he could turn the lakefront airport into a park. When that happened, we faulted him for his ‘increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take normally associated with democratic government.’ Lightfoot, a reform-minded independent, was supposed to be the antithesis of Daley.”

“Brothers in Chicago,” he said. “Please stop killing, y’all stop, we need to come together, there’s a bigger picture.” The investment to Metropolitan Family Services will help the Communities Partnering 4 Peace program that targets violent hot spots in the city.

Three men have been arrested related to illegal possession of firearms or ammunition.

Newly elected Texas Republican Party Chair Allen West said on Fox & Friends, “I can’t understand what Christopher Columbus has to do with George Floyd, but, yet, I guess Rahm Emanuel, the previous Chicago mayor, said never let a good crisis go to waste.”

“All the workers and small business owners have just been pawns in this horrible system,” one bartender, recently called back to work after several works of unemployment, said. “It’s just a horrible experiment that failed for the government.”

Both Lightfoot and Arwady repeated concerns that those between the ages of 18 and 29 years old are marking the biggest rise in infections.

For 87 years, his statue stood 33 feet and seven inches tall, looking over Grant Park. Now, just the graffiti covered pedestal remains.

The White House plan to send federal law enforcement agents to Chicago came after a protest over the statue led to police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers.

The protesters also demanded justice for an 18-year-old activist named Miracle Boyd. She was seen on cellphone video being punched by an officer as demonstrators and cops clashed near the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park last week.