The removal operation for the Confederate Soldiers & Sailors monument started off with a small clash between an irate man walking a dog and city crews preparing the Libby Hill construction site.
Richmond City workers arrived around 7:50 AM and installed orange fencing around the perimeter of the statue grounds in preparation for the professional crews who would arrive to dismantle the towering confederate memorial. About 20 minutes later at 8:10 AM a white male arrived on the scene and began ripping down the construction fencing. City workers were confused and frustrated by this behavior and they confronted him verbally. Despite being asked to halt his destructive behavior the man continued sabotaging city efforts to prepare the site for work. Eventually city workers and bystanders physically prevented the man from causing any more disruption and he left the scene.
Not long afterwards the professional crane workers arrived and setup their equipment for a tricky removal operation of the solider towering over the hill. Around 9:10 AM workers in a safety basket were elevated to the top of the statue and discovered that hornet’s nesting in the metal monument were none too thrilled by their presence. Workers dispatched the disturbed hornets with insecticide and when the angry insects dispersed they commenced work. The statue was held solidly in place atop the stone column with hundred-year-old bolts which crews struggled with but eventually the aged metal relented to modern tools.
While workers were dismantling the statue curious onlookers situated themselves on the nearby hill with picnic blankets and watched the removal of what seemed like a permanent fixture in the Church Hill neighborhood.
Around 10 AM the cranes engines revved up, a handwave was gestured and the statue lifted up through the air before being lowered to the ground where crews reoriented the statue on its side. Having secured and braced the statue it was once more hoisted onto a truck which would take it to its temporary home just across the river at the Richmond Wastewater Treatment facility.