The bronze statue of former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo that was removed from outside the Municipal Services Building in 2020 will be returned to the group that originally commissioned the sculpture, the Philadelphia Art Commission decided Wednesday morning.

The 9-foot-tall monument of Rizzo, who served as the city's police commissioner and then mayor from 1972 to 1980, was removed during protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. For years, the statue had a been a target of vandals who viewed it as a symbol of police brutality and discrimination under Rizzo's administrations.

The Frank L. Rizzo Monument Committee, which commissioned the statue and donated it to the city's public art collection in 1998, filed a lawsuit against the city to gain back possession

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