January 30, 2019 - 10:24 AM
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Officials in a North Carolina city say they'll move a Confederate monument for safety reasons and won't go to court to do so.
In a letter Wednesday to the lawyer for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Winston-Salem's attorney said the city will remove the Confederate statue sometime after Thursday and eventually will relocate it to a cemetery.
The letter from city attorney Angela Carmon says the presence of the statue in its current location jeopardizes the preservation of the statue and is harmful to public safety. The statue has been vandalized twice in less than 1 1/2 years.
The UDC had sought a 60-day delay on filing legal action to resolve who owns the statue and whether the state's monument protection law applies.
UDC attorney James Davis was in court Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment.
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This story corrects the spelling of attorney's name to Carmon instead of Cameron.
News from © The Associated Press, 2019