Victoria police are on the lookout for Queen Elizabeth’s head after vandals decapitated a statue of her in a city park..It one of many incidents of the years where Her Majesty has either lost her head or had the statue stolen altogether..The statue of the 94-year-old monarch now sits underneath a box..Police are investigating whether the decapitation on Wednesday was done by the same group responsible for several acts of vandalism in the Beacon Hill Park area..The statue was placed in 1959 to commemorate a 45-day cross-Canada tour by the Queen and Prince Philip. It was one of the first-of-its-kind erected in Canada to celebrate the 1953 Coronation..“Investigators are asking for those with information to come forward after the Queen Elizabeth II statue in Beacon Hill Park was ‘beheaded’ in an act of vandalism,’ police said in a statement..‘The head has not been recovered.”.Tensions have been increasing in the area after city shelters were shut down in the pandemic and a massive homeless encampment sprung up in Beacon Hill Park.. Screen-Shot-2021-03-01-at-11.33.54-AMThe statue before the head was lopped off. Courtesy Wikipedia .Police have recently arrested a man at gunpoint who had been threatening staff with a shovel..On Tuesday morning, a man was arrested at the park after threatening staff with a sledge hammer..Mayor Lisa Helps says that ruining public property is “completely unacceptable.” .“Whether it’s the beheading of a statue or writing on the wall or etching of glass or anything, it’s just completely unacceptable and it’s completely unnecessary,” Helps told the CBC..Repairs to fix the statue could total tens of thousands of dollars..The first concrete version of the statue was stolen from City Hall in a heist by university students, but recovered without incident..After it was installed in Beacon Hill Park, the concrete statue suffered a number of attacks with chisels, before the head was cut off and thrown into the city’s harbor..The bronze replacement was put up in 1962. On a visit in 1994 for the Victoria Commonwealth Games, the Queen herself formally unveiled the statue, which was the one beheaded this week..After the repeated vandalism in the 1960s, sculptor Peggy Walton Packard never accepted another public art commission..”It was awful. It seemed the university students were attacking the Queen and indirectly attacking me, too,’ the Daily Mail reported Walton said prior to her death in 2010, at the age of 95..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter.com/nobby7694
Victoria police are on the lookout for Queen Elizabeth’s head after vandals decapitated a statue of her in a city park..It one of many incidents of the years where Her Majesty has either lost her head or had the statue stolen altogether..The statue of the 94-year-old monarch now sits underneath a box..Police are investigating whether the decapitation on Wednesday was done by the same group responsible for several acts of vandalism in the Beacon Hill Park area..The statue was placed in 1959 to commemorate a 45-day cross-Canada tour by the Queen and Prince Philip. It was one of the first-of-its-kind erected in Canada to celebrate the 1953 Coronation..“Investigators are asking for those with information to come forward after the Queen Elizabeth II statue in Beacon Hill Park was ‘beheaded’ in an act of vandalism,’ police said in a statement..‘The head has not been recovered.”.Tensions have been increasing in the area after city shelters were shut down in the pandemic and a massive homeless encampment sprung up in Beacon Hill Park.. Screen-Shot-2021-03-01-at-11.33.54-AMThe statue before the head was lopped off. Courtesy Wikipedia .Police have recently arrested a man at gunpoint who had been threatening staff with a shovel..On Tuesday morning, a man was arrested at the park after threatening staff with a sledge hammer..Mayor Lisa Helps says that ruining public property is “completely unacceptable.” .“Whether it’s the beheading of a statue or writing on the wall or etching of glass or anything, it’s just completely unacceptable and it’s completely unnecessary,” Helps told the CBC..Repairs to fix the statue could total tens of thousands of dollars..The first concrete version of the statue was stolen from City Hall in a heist by university students, but recovered without incident..After it was installed in Beacon Hill Park, the concrete statue suffered a number of attacks with chisels, before the head was cut off and thrown into the city’s harbor..The bronze replacement was put up in 1962. On a visit in 1994 for the Victoria Commonwealth Games, the Queen herself formally unveiled the statue, which was the one beheaded this week..After the repeated vandalism in the 1960s, sculptor Peggy Walton Packard never accepted another public art commission..”It was awful. It seemed the university students were attacking the Queen and indirectly attacking me, too,’ the Daily Mail reported Walton said prior to her death in 2010, at the age of 95..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com.Twitter.com/nobby7694
