Confederate flag hung on Boston Memorial Monument ‘not an act of Vandalism’: police

A Confederate flag was hung last night from the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, located at the Boston Common across from the State House.

A man who said he was with the group that hung the flag told the Boston Globe that he and the others gathered at the memorial to burn the Confederate banner as a tribute to the soldiers of the 54th Regiment. The group was eventually stopped by a policeman.

Before the group left the area, one of them tied a damaged flag to Shaw’s statue’s sword, according to the Globe. Police officials said that they got a call at 10:25 p.m. last night to investigate the property. Once officials arrived on the scene the flag had been removed by an unknown person and allegedly thrown into a trashcan nearby.

Detectives who investigated the property said this was not an act of vandalism because the flag had been removed and no property was damaged.

Robert Gould Shaw came from a family of abolitionists and led the all-black Massachsetts 54th Regiment during the Civil War. Shaw and his men were portrayed on film in the 1989 movie “Glory.”