Outrage over ‘cops as warthogs’ painting continues as LA police union protests
by Toni McAllister
City News Service
January 10, 2017
The Los Angeles Police Protective League and four other police unions are once again calling for the removal of a controversial painting that has twice been removed and re-installed on a wall in the U.S. Capitol Building.
The painting — which depicts police as warthogs aiming guns at a group of protesters — has been an ongoing media spectacle for days, during which time it’s been taken down by Republican representatives Duncan Hunter of California and Doug Lamborn of Colorado, only to be re-hung by Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Missouri.
“By re-hanging this painting in our nation’s capitol, Rep. Clay is not only agreeing with it, but he’s celebrating it,” the LAPPL said in a statement co-signed by the Sergeants Benevolent Association of New York and the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose Police Officers Associations. “Clay agrees with this painting’s depiction of police officers as pigs looking to gun down innocent people and he shouldn’t cowardly hide behind the first amendment to justify re-hanging the picture.”
The painting, by then-high school senior David Pulphus, was a winner in the House of Representatives’ “Artistic Discovery” art contest for high school students. Inspired by protesters’ clashes with the Ferguson Police Department in 2014, the painting is called “Untitled #1.”
Clay chose the piece as the winner from his district and it had been hanging without controversy for months until recently, when police unions started to voice opposition.
The LAPPL and four other police unions last week wrote a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan asking him to take the painting down. At that time, the painting had not been removed.
Since then, both Lamborn and Hunter — who represents parts of San Diego County — have removed the painting, only to have it hung back up by Clay, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper reported the painting might have even been removed and re-hung a third time Tuesday.
“This is really not about a student art competition anymore,” Clay said, according to the Post-Dispatch. “It’s about defending the Constitution.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: I've seen pictures of the hateful painting hung on a wall in Congress by that asshole Lacy Clay. I've also got my old copy of the Black Panther coloring book. One of the pages shows a warthog cop pointing a gun at some black children just like in the painting. I suspect that David Pulphus found a copy of the coloring book and used it make his hate-the-cops painting.
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