Sicilian Culture: News: Man Who Bashed Satute of Columbus Gets Jail Term

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Man Who Bashed Satute of Columbus Gets Jail Term
Jose Mercury News

October 10, 2001 - - A man who used a sledgehammer to smash a marble statue of Christopher Columbus in San Jose City Hall was sentenced Tuesday to 10 months in county jail.
James Cosner pleaded guilty last month to felony vandalism charges. In custody since the attack in March, Cosner will serve about 75 more days in jail. He also was ordered to pay up to $65,000 in restitution and serve 5,250 hours of community service. As a condition of his probation, he must complete at least 15 hours of service each weekend or face three years in prison.
He had originally been charged with a hate-crime enhancement, which was dropped for lack of evidence.
The enhancement charge stemmed from Cosner's having likened displaying a statue of Columbus to that of Adolf Hitler in that both were responsible for genocide campaigns -- Columbus against indigenous people.
Prosecutor Rob Barker said Cosner's sentence was too light and that prison would have been appropriate ``because he used violence to impose his political will on others.''
SAN JOSE (10/10/2001)
www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/alabrfs10.htm

FRACTURED STATUE OF COLUMBUS STILL WAITING FOR NEW LEGS
By Rodney Foo, San Jose Mercury News
12/23/2001,Morning Final, Page 1B
San Jose City Hall's statue of Christopher Columbus, a casualty of vandalism nine months ago, still hasn't got a pair of legs to stand on and apparently won't until next year.
For now, the life-size statue is at an Oakland warehouse, wrapped in protective padding and lying on its back on a dolly, awaiting a new set of legs and shoes that will be chiseled by artisans in Italy.
At first, it was thought the 43-year-old statue might be repaired by the end of the year and back in the City Hall lobby. But restoring a broken statue is a complex process and it won't be home for Christmas, and neither will James Michael Cosner, the man who smashed it with a sledgehammer.
Cosner, who says Columbus should not be memorialized as the discoverer of America but as a genocidal maniac who laid waste to New World cultures, is due to be released from the Elmwood Correctional Facility on Thursday.While he will soon be free, the ramifications of his actions on March 8 are not yet over.
Prosecutors have appealed a condition of Cosner's sentence, demanding he actually pay the city $50,000 in restitution instead of receiving credits through community service.
And a city employee who broke her shoulder in the panic that ensued as Cosner hammered the statue still suffers lingering and debilitating effects from her injury.Nancy Jo Banko, 49, was working as a communications analyst in City Hall that day and accidentally shattered her upper humerus bone -- the ball that rotates in the shoulder socket -- in the confusion. Now she has a stainless steel ball and rod in her left arm and shoulder. She has limited strength and her range of motion is severely limited.She once considered suing Cosner, but dropped the idea.''Mr. Cosner didn't come in and hit me, but he indirectly is responsible,'' she said, ''and obviously he never thought his actions would have consequences beyond breaking up the statue.
''At the core, many wonder if Cosner regrets striking the statue that day. His reply: No.''I know there are certain people that would love to hear me say that I am remorseful or regretful,'' the 32-year-old said during an interview at the jail. ''But, I cannot in good conscience, in good principle, in good morality... say I'm remorseful.''Instead he expressed remorse that the ''governmental system here in San Jose has not learned one thing. They have refused to understand why so much of the community in San Jose would be opposed to this horrendous symbol of mass murder and racism. . . . The only point they can see is that I am a vandal.
''Cosner's unrepentant attitude has engendered revulsion within the local Italian - American community.''It just sort of makes me disgusted with the man,'' said Phil Barone, a local president of the Italian - American Heritage Foundation.Barone allows that the statue, a 1958 gift from the San Jose's Italian - American community to the city, ''means a lot of different things to very different people.'' But to him it was a symbol of pride, an acknowledgment of the important role that Italians have in America's history.''So consequently, when someone destroys the statue and says that this statue is actually indicative of bad things that happened to this country, it hurts,'' Barone said.
The duality of Columbus's role -- the explorer who expanded Western civilization, which subsequently led to the destruction of New World cultures and the enslavement of natives -- has been a divisive issue for decades.
Over time, the statue has come to embody that debate, said Robert Milnes, director of the School of Art and Science at San Jose State University. Inevitably, art or symbols that commemorate an event or a person will engender conflicting feelings, Milnes said.''If you have a sculpture that commemorates a particular person or event, you also have to realize that not everybody is always on that one side,'' Milnes said.
When Cosner hammered the statue's legs, hands, and nicked its face, it was left to the city to literally pick up the pieces. In the weeks after the attack, the city hired the conservation lab with the Oakland Museum of California to restore the statue.Pieces of the legs and shoes that were recovered have been reassembled with adhesives and will be shipped early next year to Pietrasanta, Italy, where masons and artisans will use them as models to carve the replacements.
Conservation lab workers had to carefully glue hundreds of broken pieces together, an arduous task, said John Burke, who heads the lab. Still, parts of the legs were missing, said Burke, who noted there remains a quart of pulverized dust that was swept up after the attack.The other damage to the hands and face can be fixed in Oakland.Burke warned that the statue cannot be expected to look the same as it did before it was vandalized. Marble, like people, ages and takes on a different character. The new marble won't match the four-decade-old marble.
Burke said it isn't known when the repair work will be completed. The artisans in Italy, he said, may have other projects that will delay restoration of legs.In August, the council appropriated $65,000 to fix the statue. When Cosner was handed a 10-month sentence by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Robert Ahern, his restitution bill was capped at $50,000.
He was given the option of working off that debt at the rate of $10 for each hour of community service over 250 hours, said prosecutor Rob Baker.But Baker believes Cosner should pay money instead of gaining credits through community work. Baker has filed an appeal asking for that.''He needs to pay back the city of San Jose for what they suffered in damages,'' Baker said. ''He just doesn't owe it to the city, he owes it to the citizens.''

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