Crowd topples Queen Victoria monument at Manitoba Legislature

Police shocked a man with a stun gun and arrested him while others lobbed objects their way and yelled profanities after a crowd pulled down a prominent statue of Queen Victoria on the Manitoba Legislature grounds on Thursday. 

The circumstances of the arrest remain unclear and it’s possible the arrested man was angry at those who had pulled the statue down at around 4 p.m. CT. 

The crowd on the grounds was largely peaceful prior to the man’s arrest, in which police had to push a throng back to take him into custody. 

A Winnipeg police spokesperson declined immediate comment, saying there may be information forthcoming on Friday. 

A series of images shows the sequence of events as a monument to Queen Victoria was toppled Thursday at the Manitoba Legislature. (Submitted by Jessica Antony)

The grounds were the destination of an Every Child Matters walk on Canada Day afternoon to protest the fallout of Canada’s residential schools system. 

The statue was left covered in red painted handprints. A sign saying “We were children once. Bring them home” was left leaning on the statue’s pedestal after it was toppled. 

Dozens of people, many wearing orange shirts in memory of Indigenous children sent to residential schools, surrounded the monument. Some of them wrapped it in ropes and pulled it off its base.

The statue, first unveiled in 1904, was left covered with a Canadian flag which had been written over with black marker with the words “we were children.”

A statue of Queen Elizabeth II, located on the east side of the legislative grounds, was also toppled. (Marina von Stackelberg/CBC )

A smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth II was also toppled on the east side of the grounds and was left covered in yellow rope. 

The toppling of the statues comes on a Canada Day in which thousands took to the city’s streets to honour victims and survivors of residential schools. 

CBC has requested comment from the province. 

WATCH | Statue of Queen Victoria toppled at Manitoba Legislature:  Members of a crowd pulled the statue down on Thursday afternoon. (Courtesy Belinda Vandenbroeck) 1:27