Bust of slave owner torn down and thrown into river in New Orleans

Protesters on Saturday tore down a bust of a slave owner who left part of his fortune to New Orleans' schools and then took the remains to the Mississippi River and rolled it down the banks into the water. The destruction is part of a nationwide effort to remove monuments to the Confederacy or with links to slavery as the country grapples with widespread protests against police brutality toward African Americans. Police said in a statement on Saturday that demonstrators at Duncan Plaza, which is directly across the street from City Hall, dragged the bust into the streets, loaded it onto trucks and took it to the Mississippi River where they threw it in. Two people who were driving the trucks transporting the bust were apprehended by police and taken to police headquarters, authorities said. Their names were not given in the statement. The police did not identify the bust but local media identified it as a bust of John McDonogh.