Alana Casanova-Burgess

Part of his base had come off too, so he was surrounded by chunks of rubble.

The real Ponce de León had been appointed by Spain as the first governor of Puerto Rico in 1509.

His statue had been pointing south, perhaps towards the original capital city, Caparra, with his other hand on his hip.

But on the ground, it looked like the statue was holding his finger up in the air, as if he wanted to say just one more thing before everyone stopped listening.

He looked small.

For many media commentators, like talk radio show host Rubén Sánchez on WKAQ, the big reaction was horror, shock, dismay.

The statue, he told Mayor Miguel Romero, had been there since he was a little boy.

But actually, it had been up in that plaza since the 1890s, right off the famous Calle San Sebastián, next to the Church of San José, the same church that King Felipe was scheduled to visit the very next day.

sometime between 5.45 and 5.50 that very afternoon.

Perhaps, the mayor said, the monarch doesn't even notice these kinds of things.

Maybe the protest wasn't even about the royal visit.

But it absolutely was.

Even before 7 a.m., a group called the Fuerzas Libertarias de Boriquén had taken responsibility for pulling the statue down.

They hadn't been heard of before, and they haven't been heard of since.

But the message was, no kings and no gringo invaders.

They were linking Ponce de Leon, a symbol of Spanish colonialism, to people from the United States moving to Puerto Rico for tax incentives, displacing Puerto Ricans.

Whoever was behind the group, they had gotten everyone's attention.

Coming up after the break, an empty pedestal.

This is La Brega.

Season three of La Brega was made possible by the Mellon Foundation, which seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive.