Philadelphia removes statue of former law-and-order Mayor Frank Rizzo

Philadelphia city officials on Wednesday removed a vandalized statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo, who evoked strong views among black and white residents during his turbulent tenure as mayor and police commissioner.

City workers using a crane took down the spray-painted statue of the late Mr. Rizzo from a plaza adjacent to city hall, where it had stood since 1999. Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney, whose city has been roiled by protests and looting in the past week, said good riddance.

“The statue represented bigotry, hatred, and oppression for too many people, for too long,” Mr. Kenney tweeted. “It is finally gone.”Protesters this week had been using the statue as a rallying point as they demonstrated against police brutality, unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

“The continued display of the statue has understandably enraged and hurt many Philadelphians, including those protesting the heinous murders of George Floyd and too many others,” Mr. Kenney said. “I have seen and heard their anguish. This statue now no longer stands in front of a building that serves all Philadelphians.”

A two-story-high mural of Mr. Rizzo in the city’s famed Italian Market also has been defaced and won’t be restored by the city’s Mural Arts commission, the panel announced.

“We do not believe the mural can play a role in healing and supporting dialogue, but rather it has become a painful reminder for many of the former mayor’s legacy, and only adds to the pain and anger,” Mural Arts said in a statement.

Mr. Rizzo, who served two terms from 1972 to 1980, was known as a law-and-order mayor. As police commissioner, he once showed up to a disturbance in a housing project wearing a tuxedo with a nightstick tucked into his cummerbund.

He was praised for hiring more black police officers, but criticized for the department’s tactics against minorities in a city with chronic complaints of police brutality.

John Gizzi, a journalist with Newsmax who covered Mr. Rizzo in the 1980s and ’90s, tweeted at the current mayor that Mr. Rizzo “protected citizens of all colors” and that Mr. Kenney’s removal of the statue was “disgusting.”

The statue has been placed in storage.