RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - An anonymous group claims to have hung eight Ku Klux Klan effigies in Bryan Park on Thursday morning.
'"Ku Klux Klowns' is the latest project from the anonymous American Activist Collective, INDECLINE," the group said in a press release. "It was conceptualized in the Spring of 2017 in protest of the White Nationalist uprising in the United States."
While it has been months in the making, the group tells us it wasn't until after the violent rally in Charlottesville that the group started looking at Virginia as a place to put the display.
The group says the effigies were hung in Richmond because of "its infamous legacy of being the capital of the Confederate South. It was executed in what is today known as Joseph Bryan Park, the same location of the Gabriel Prosser slave rebellion in 1800."
They said they scouted the area ahead of time, coming in through the woods overnight to hang the clown dolls.
Police closed the entrances to the park for several hours. The park has since reopened.
Richmond Police released the following statement: "The Richmond Police Department is investigating the display in Bryan Park. It has been removed. No arrests have been made."
Jim Nolan, the Press Secretary for Mayor Stoney said, "there are many ways to express a point of view. As a city we don't condone breaking the law to do so."
A member of INDECLINE spoke to us to explain the group wants the shock factor to spark a conversation.
"Kick the door in and instead of being baseless infantile vandalism there's obviously a deeper meaning there," he said, explaining the meaning for the group is to take a stance against white supremacists, while also making fun of them in an attempt to take their power away as a group.
"At the end of the day, it's grown men who dress as ghosts," he said.
The group is also responsible for the statues depicting a nude Donald Trump that popped up in multiple U.S. cities. They also recently painted murals in L.A. showing a Ghostbuster symbol chasing after a Klan member.
INDECLINE says the latest display in Bryan Park is a call to action, hoping to inspire others to stand up against white supremacy.
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