without straying too far into religion, technically (according to the roman Authorities at the time) Jesus was a terrorist.
many depictions show him suffering a cruel and degrading punishment.
should we now remove all statues and depictions of him from view because it may offend someone?
we have all been taught the history of this person and should understand why we are still showing these statues.
Having read up on the colson statue, I now understood it had been erected by the victorians, that was a great period of reform, child labour was being eradicated, as was exploitation of the poor, yet still many of the prejudices we now look upon with horror were still in practice. did the victorians misjudge the man when they erected a statue to him, probably not by their standards. many may not have known about the shadier side of his business dealings, and judged him purely on those good deeds he did in bristol, but looking back in hindsight, yes it is probably time his statue was retired to a museum, with a full description of his works, good and bad, so people can learn from this and judge him accordingly.
But to attack and desecrate a statue as part of a protest was not the right way to go about this, from what I understand the issue was under discussion already, and this may have pushed along the decision, but some protesters went along with the intent to cause damage, they took ropes with them, so it was pre-meditated damage, (see my earlier explanation on bricks). they went to a peaceful protest with the intent to cause damage - these are the criminals that need to be eradicated, the violent militant ones.