New Orleans sued over planned removal of statue honoring Confederate general

A New Orleans resident is suing the city in order to prevent officials from "touching, removing, or doing anything" with a statue of Confederate general Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.

The monument is one of four honoring Confederate military leaders and battles that the city has said it will take down; one statue commemorating the Battle of Liberty Place has already been removed, by contractors wearing tactical vests and masks working in the middle of the night. Richard Marksbury, a founder of a group that opposes the removal of Confederate statues, told reporters Monday the Beauregard statue at the entrance to City Park is on private, not city land, and thus cannot be brought down. A judge has rejected an immediate block of the removal, and a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Due to safety concerns, Mayor Mitch Landrieu is not revealing when the statues will come down. The Battle of Liberty Place monument was created in 1891, and commemorates a post-Civil War fight between the Crescent City White League, which opposed New Orleans' integrated police force, and the state militia, CNN reports. The other two statues on the chopping block honor Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

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