Who bombed the statue?

September 30, 2009 11:48 AM

In response to this post: did the Weather Underground actually claim responsibility for the Cleveland Rodin bombing?

The Cleveland Museum page claims it was the Weather Underground; Wikipedia doesn't mention it. Google results are thus far inconclusive. Where would I go to find the official word?

posted by puckish to grab bag (3 comments total)

The Cleveland Museum of Art page says "It was reported that this attack was undertaken by a radical political group, perhaps as a commentary on the continuing military action in Vietnam or the elitism of the American government," and elsewhere, "According to the Cleveland Police Department, this act of vandalism was committed by a cell of the politically radical Weather Underground that was operating in Cleveland at the time." So unless I missed a place where they said something else, they're actually saying the police said it was the WU.

You could look up reporting from that period on the bombing and see whether this is true (or at least whether it appeared in the papers). Ultimately you'd probably have to go to the Cleveland Police Department and do some digging. You can call the public information department at 216.623.5033 if you're in the US.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 12:04 PM on September 30, 2009

I added a mention to the page on The Thinker, sourced to the academic journal. That article cites as a source "Superintendent Victor Kavosic, Cleveland Police Department".
posted by dhartung at 6:01 PM on September 30, 2009

FWIW: The Way The Wind Blew, a history of the Weathermen by Ron Jacobs, makes no mention of this bombing in its timeline. The only statue it mentions is the Haymarket Statue in Chicago that they bombed in 1969 and then again in 1970.

There's an email for Ron Jacobs at the bottom of this article - might be worth a shot.
posted by bhance at 7:52 PM on September 30, 2009