January 10, 2021

Bring us the head of Hans Christian Heg!

The Wisconsin State Journal reports: 
A criminal complaint charged Rodney A. Clendening, 34, of Beloit, with felony theft after police said they identified him as the driver of a car into which the head of the abolitionist statue was placed on June 23, after a group of people, using another vehicle to assist them, pulled down the statue of Heg during a destructive night Downtown. 
According to the complaint against Clendening.... He walked toward the Heg plinth, just out of the camera’s view, and came back into view alongside two other men who were carrying Heg’s head. One of the men put the head into the trunk of the Ford. After the trunk was closed, Clendening went back to the driver’s seat and drove off. The car was seen a short time later on video footage at John Nolen Drive and East Wilson Street. A man who appeared to be Clendening got out and ran toward South Blair and East Wilson streets. A short time later, he was seen standing near a man police say was the driver of the Nissan used to pull down the Heg statue....

Getting the head back is important, but they are already spending $51,600 to recast it, and the plan is to have the statue reinstalled by "the middle of the year." 

IMG_7517

39 comments:

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Leftists should pay for it.

Instead, hard working Americans will.

Linda said...

Sadly, my bet is that it will come down once again. Likely during warmer months when things heat up once again. After all - nothing was really solved - nothing has changed - nothing is different, well maybe it is different, but not in a good way.

David Begley said...

Any other indictments or arrests of those domestic terrorists and insurrectionists?

Jeff Vader said...

I’m sure he will be brutally punished by the racist regime

HistoryDoc said...

Try this thought exercise:

Let's say a group of conservatives decides to tear down a statue of Martin Luther King.

Would the police told to stand down while this happens?

Would the media cheer this on?

Would the perpetrators be booked and released?

Would the DA promptly drop all charges?

We all definitively found that answer out this week.

Breezy said...

I’d say prosecuting the people responsible, and having them pay for the damage, in a very public way, is far more important.

Dr Weevil said...

Breezy:
If you mean "pay for" monetarily, that's not good enough. Lefties will be falling all over themselves sending him money via PayPal and he'll end up with enough left over to quit his job (if he has one). He, and all his accomplices, need to go to jail for years, not months: it's the only thing that will deter a repeat.

Fernandinande said...

Rodney A. Clendening is Wisconsin's first black Heg head heister.

Temujin said...

I hope the restoration goes better than some of these. Some restorations are best left undone.

Owen said...

If they cast a new statue, they should mix in Clendening’s ashes.

Wince said...

None dare call it incitement.

DavidUW said...

having them pay for the damage, in a very public way, is far more important.
>>
In lieu of cash repayment, the public stocks in January in Wisconsin would be adequate punishment.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Is he a registered Democrat or perhaps a party operative?

rhhardin said...

"Many said the Saudis were a humorless people - like Germans but without the sense of humor was the phrase a lot of people used - but that hadn't been his experience there." - Tom Clancy novel

That's a good line but hard to work into a more generally applicable form, say about women or the left. It intersects Germans too much.

rhhardin said...

On the joke scale, it's clever, mean and recognizable. Three of the six.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Clendening, the perp, lives in Beloit which is 50 miles from Madison yet a Madison police officer recognized him? I guess Clendeing has a record? And driving a car with Texas plates? That is interesting too.

Lastly, the events are consistently described as "protests" in the article versus the
"insurrection" in the Imperial City on Wednesday.

Lucien said...

What’s the difference between a Heg’s head and a hogshead?

Bob Boyd said...

"I lost my head." - Rodney Clendening

Dude1394 said...

What a waste of money. Next year another different group of 5 people will get pissed at it and destroy it again.

JaimeRoberto said...

That's no way to get ahead.

Joe Smith said...

When it's restored, I hope it's torn down again within a week.

Burn down a few more blocks downtown while you're at it.

Looting and rioting for months and it's like it never happened.

A fraction of rioters went to jail. Same with looters. But if you were anywhere near Capital Hill last week you'll be tracked down like a rabid dog.

The people in deep blue cities that vote for idiot politicians haven't yet felt enough pain to make them rethink their voting habits.

Insert definition of insanity here...

Joe Smith said...

@You-cef HB...on a lighter note:

Tobacco and breastfeeding?

Yes please.

(Said in an Austin Powers voice) : )

Lurker21 said...

I got Hans Christian Heg's head when I asked them to bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.

Can we swap?

BarrySanders20 said...

Fernandinande said...
Rodney A. Clendening is Wisconsin's first black Heg head heister.

A regular Heg-hog.

cacimbo said...

The statue destroyers went about it all wrong. They just need to study Heg's legacy more closely.Did he ever state women shouldn't vote, deny the right of gays to marry use a racial slur to reference any non-white...Just find something and the politicians will remove the statue themselves.See Chamberlin Rock.

Meade said...

Bob Boyd said...
"I lost my head." - Rodney Clendening
--------------------------------------

I would not be just a nuffin'
My head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain
I would dance and be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain

wildswan said...

Just a reminder. The South almost won the battle of Chickamauga because, at a crucial moment, an entire division was removed from the front line of the Union right wing and shifted elsewhere without waiting for its replacements to move into position. And while that hole, a quarter of a mile wide existed, Confederate General Longstreet sent a column of ten thousand men against that part of the Union front line. In that enormous gap with no support on either side was what was left of Colonel Heg's battalion from the previous day's fighting including 276 men from the 15th Wisconsin regiment who had been recruited and trained by Colonel Heg. When Longstreet charged everything to their right shredded away, regiments and battalions fleeing like Congressmen in a mixed mass and fighting only each other in an effort to reach a pass through the mountains which meant safety - perhaps. The battle line on the immediately adjacent left of Colonel Heg's men also disappeared. This all meant that these men were being shot at from in front, then, from both sides and then, Finally, from behind. But unlike the fleeing regiments on both sides these men remained a unit and conducted a fighting retreat for three miles. They, then reached a solid Union line being built up by Union General Thomas from such fragments as what was left of the Wisconsin 15th. General Thomas is Known as the Rock of Chickamauga because he rebuilt the Union line at Chickamauga and prevented the Confederates from driving the whole Union army into the desolate mountains between Chickamauga and Chattanooga. Had the Union lost that entire army, (Which was the Confederate plan) it is likely that Lincoln would have been forced to end the war, leaving the Confederacy and slavery intact below the Mason Dixon line. There was a war weariness and a desire to forget about slavery which probably would have prevailed if 100,000 men were killed wounded or captured. All this did not happen because General Thomas held out and he held out because men, like the men of the 15th Wisconsin, trained by Colonel Heg retreated fighting, found his line and went on fighting to cover the escape of the panic-stricken sections of the Union army. It is outrageous that this statue was toppled without an outcry. But this silence showed and shows that another shameful retreat was even then in progress. I am hopeful that another line will form on another Rock. At least the statue is going up again.

n.n said...

What a waste of money. Next year another different group of 5 people will get pissed at it and destroy it again.

They should replace it with something durable. Say, a rock, a boulder, and paint it black... nay, brown... nay, rainbow and inclusive... neither black nor brown and the shredded remains of white. Forward!

Joe Smith said...

"Bring us the head of Hans Christian Heg!"

'I ain't got no-body...'

-- Hans Christian Heg's Head

RBE said...

Just make something styled from plywood as a replacement and call it good.

holdfast said...

Bring me the head of Londo Mollari!

Joe Smith said...

"Just make something styled from plywood as a replacement and call it good."

Or a random mannequin head.

Or make it removable, so every once in a while it can be replaced with a new head.

Today it's Hans. Next week it's Little Richard. The week after, a pirate.

Jack Klompus said...

"I got Hans Christian Heg's head when I asked them to bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia."

Underrated Peckinpah.

Phil 314 said...

This could end like one of those internet games where they steal the head then it appears periodically in places throughout the world.

mikee said...

At my university, a particularly stupid student was busted for theft of a Ronald McDonald statue, after the school newspaper published, with his permission, a picture of it in his dorm room. he'd won some award on his dorm hall for decorating his room, and was soooo proud.

Joe Smith said...

"This could end like one of those internet games where they steal the head then it appears periodically in places throughout the world."

"Where in the world is Carmen Hans Heg?"

Howard said...

At my University dorm, we removed all the shower heads in the girls bathroom upstairs.

Mikey NTH said...

Bring me the head of Donald the Trump! -Nancy Pelosi

supagold said...

"Clendening, the perp, lives in Beloit which is 50 miles from Madison yet a Madison police officer recognized him? I guess Clendeing has a record?"

Looks like he's a registered sex offender? At least according to the WI DoC website. It's even the same mugshot as attached to the article. I guess it's not relevant to the crime he committed here, but seems an odd coincidence - wasn't one of the people involved in the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting also a sex offender?