A man was shot during a protest in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Monday. The protest was meant to topple the statue of a conquistador Juan de Oñate, but the protestors were met by a group of volunteers who were out there to protect historical landmarks. One man was reportedly shot as the volunteers prevented the rioting protests from bringing down the statue. The person was reported to be in critical condition as he was brought to the hospital.

Videos of the incident showed a group of rioters who were protesting around the monument. They then placed signs and a hood on the statue and connected a chain to it. Several of the rioters tried to pull the statue down as one of them was hitting its base with a pickaxe to dislodge it from the pedestal. It was unclear as to how long it would have taken them to topple the statue as their efforts looked weak and pathetic. It was then that a shot rang out, and it turns out that one of them has been shot.

One Stephen Ray Baca was detained and charged in connection with the shooting. Baca was supposed to be one of the volunteers who have been trying to protect the statue from the vandals. It is not clear yet if Baca is a member of the New Mexico Civil Guard, an armed militia group that was present during the protest. Some members of the militia group were also detained during the incident. Albuquerque Police Chief Michael Geier said that they are looking into the possibility that the members of the volunteer militia were the ones that instigated the violence.

This is typical of how the conservative groups are always the ones being accused of instigating the violence during clashes with Antifa gangsters and other leftist groups. Even if the leftists are the ones doing the vandalism, the looting, and the rioting, the conservatives are the ones that are being blamed.

As more and more of these protests are happening all over the country, these kinds of clashes will become more common. Local government officials seem to be unwilling or unable to protect their local monuments, and local patriots will have to be the one to step and protect history. Now, it’s not just the monuments of the conquistadors or the Confederate officers that are being targeted, even the monuments to the founding fathers are no longer safe. A statue of Thomas Jefferson was reportedly pulled down by vandals in Portland, and that’s just the beginning.