THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
By Richard Rainey
Social media rumors boiled into the physical realm Wednesday (April 26) as the leader of the New Orleans firefighters union confirmed that Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration used five or six city firefighters in the dismantling of the Battle of Liberty Place monument at the foot of Iberville Street early Monday.
A work crew wearing masks, tactical helmets and flak jackets used bucket cranes to scale the obelisk and take it apart in sections so that it could be placed on a flatbed trailer and taken to an undisclosed city warehouse.
“The bottom line is with these Confederate monuments, it’s not really something we deal with as firefighters,” New Orleans Fire Fighters Associations President Nick Felton said, addressing reporters after almost an hour inside City Hall speaking with Landrieu’s team. “We should not be in riot gear. We should not be doing police-type work and we are absolutely concerned, you know, that that type of thing is going on.”