Cosner offended the Italian American Community
Cosner actions cost the Citizens of Oakland $65,000 
Cosner's actions seriously injured a City Employee
Cosner not only offers No Remorse, But instead Lectures Officials
Judge Robert Ahern sentenced Cosner to 10 months and Community Service
Prosecutor Rob Baker wants Cosner to make Restitution.
We Support Bob Baker!!!!! 
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FRACTURED STATUE OF COLUMBUS 
STILL WAITING FOR NEW LEGS

San Jose Mercury News 
By Rodney Foo, 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.''