THP ask for help finding protester(s) who damaged Nashville statue

NASHVILLE (WDEF) – The Tennessee Highway Patrol is handling the investigation into who damaged a statue at the state Capitol during the Floyd protests in May.

The Edward Carmack Statue was toppled from its base over the Capitol Motlow Tunnel on May 30th.

Video from the protests shows around three people pushing it over.

The state is offering up to a $2,500 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

If you have any information that will aid investigators, please contact the THP Criminal Investigations Division at 615-251-5185 with attention to Sgt. Andrew Naylor.

from WTVF

Edward Carmack was a U.S. Senator from Tennessee, but is not very well known.

He was an attorney and politician, but is best remembered as a newspaperman.

He was an editor of what is now the Memphis Commercial Appeal and went on to found the Nashville Tennessean.

But he died in his forties after being shot in a dual with a newspaper rival in 1908.

The next year, lawmakers approved the sculpture that was erected as the state in 1927.

The controversial part of his career was his editorial rivalry with Ida B. Wells, who was an early champion of Civil Rights and a crusader against lynchings.

Carmack once wrote an editorial endorsing the lynching of African Americans who tried to open a grocery store in Memphis, who Wells was defending in her paper.

You can read more of his history, here.