The Statue of Liberty in New York City was shut down for most of July Fourth this week after a woman actually managed to hoist herself all the way up to the robes of this iconic pretend woman.
(To be accurate, seven protesters holding a banner that read "Abolish I.C.E." actually stood at the base of this national monument prior to tha above incident, prompting officials to close the statue to tourists.
But it was the woman and her climb that got all the national attention.)
Not until the woman was apprehended by authorities did we learn her name and a little more about her background.
Her name is Therese Okoumou and she is a native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to various news outlets, Okoumou told police that she scaled all the way up this monumentto protest the separation of immigrant children from parents who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
This has been a prominent issue of national debate for weeks now, with stars such as Amber Heard making their opinions on the topic well known.
The activist group behind the Abolish I.C.E. sign, Rise and Resist, Tweeted that the climber wasn’t connected to its demonstration and expressed concern for her safety, although we believe she did not suffer any injuries.
Okoumou, 44, has lived in The Big Apple for the past 10 years.
Police with safety ropes had to go up, grab her and bring her down as she sat under the sandal of the statue for several minutes late yesterday afternoon.
She was eventually tethered between two officers and climbed down to the promontory via a ladder to safety.
“No one in the group knew this was going to happen,” Rise and Resist member Jay Walker told the New York Daily News, adding:
“We don’t know if she did it on the spur of the moment or if she had been planning it beforehand."
Once she reached her destination, Okoumou held up a T-shirt that supported her case, as you can see in the photo above.
"At first, she wasn"t friendly with us, but we took the time to get a rapport with her so that took a while," Officer Brian Glacken said in a news conference Wednesday evening, elaborating as follows:
"She just kind of mentioned the kids in Texas. I guess the whole debate that"s going on about that. In the beginning, she threatened to push us off, push the ladder off, but we stayed with her…
"She actually apologized to us for having to go up and get her."
Watch the video at the top of this post to learn more and to see this protest/rescue in action.
