Judge denies request to halt Confederate statue’s removal in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana judge on Wednesday denied a request for an injunction blocking the city from removing a statue of a Confederate general at the entrance to a local park.

The huge bronze image of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard on horseback sits in the center of a traffic circle at the entrance to New Orleans City Park.

Richard Marksbury, a New Orleans resident who filed the lawsuit earlier this week, contended that the City Park board and not the city of New Orleans owned the statue and the land upon which it sits.

Judge Kern Reese’s rejection of an injunction means the city can remove the statue pending further proceedings in his court.

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“This has gone on an inordinate amount of time,” Reese said as he outlined reasons for his refusal to grant an injunction protecting the statue. It was a reference to state and federal court battles that delayed removal of the Beauregard monument and three others for more than a year.

Marksbury said he was disappointed in Reese’s decision and may appeal the ruling.

In refusing an injunction, Reese noted documents indicating the monument was donated to the city in 1907. And, aside from any ownership questions, he said the city was granted perpetual use of the land in question.

The City Council voted to remove four Confederate-era monuments in 2015 at the urging of Mayor Mitch Landrieu — part of a national response after nine black parishioners were shot to death by an avowed racist at a church in Charleston, S.C., earlier that year.

Landrieu said it is time to move from the debate in the courtroom and to removing the monuments.

"The law is the law, so we’re going to move forward with taking the monuments down." Landrieuu would not give a timetable.

Beauregard statue is one of three Confederate-era monuments scheduled to be taken down by the city. A statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee and one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis are also slated for removal. A fourth structure, the Liberty Place monument, was removed late last month. It honored whites who battled a biracial Reconstruction-era government in New Orleans.

A bill in the state legislature to prevent removal of the monuments is still awaiting a house debate.

Contributing: The Associated Press