Toppled Confederate statue 'Silent Sam' will be put back up at UNC

According to a member of the UNC Board of Governors, the toppled "Silent Sam" Confederate statue will be reinstated within 90 days in compliance with state law.

Chapel Hill's WNCN reported that board member Thom Goolsby posted on Twitter and Facebook that the monument will be put back up — and that the "criminals" responsible for tearing it down will be "held accountable."

"Criminals who destroyed state property at UNC and police who did nothing will be held accountable," Goolsby wrote.

On Thursday, UNC police charged three people involved with the toppling of Silent Sam with misdemeanor charges related to rioting and defacement of public property.

Last August, UNC Police Chief Jeff McCracken estimated that it cost the school roughly $621,000 annually to surveil the contentious statue that's been the target of protesters' ire for decades.

Protests at Silent Sam reached a fever pitch in the aftermath of the deadly Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally last year when anti-racists in the nearby city of Durham toppled another Confederate monument on city grounds.