“DEGRADING” POLITICAL PICTURE TAKEN DOWN

DEGRADING POLITICAL PICTURE TAKEN DOWN

Just today, on Friday, the sixth of January, 2017, Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter of California decided he’d had enough with a specific painting of the art displays in the U.S. Capitol complex. With the help of a couple of colleagues, Hunter unscrewed the painting and returned it to the office of Democratic Representative Lacy Clay of Missouri, who hung the painting up in June of last year. This controversial piece of ‘art’, as many law enforcement professionals have put it (more than 27,000 of them), is a “reprehensible, repugnant and repulsive” painting, and has outraged the law enforcement community for the past six months. Why? Because this painting, given to Clay in his latest art competition, depicts police officers as pigs.

I don’t mean figuratively, I mean literal pigs, with their guns drawn on African American protestors, one of which is being crucified while holding the scales of justice. Hunter goes on to comment on Fox News, saying “At a time of our country facing rising crime and a shortage of those willing to work the streets as police officers and deputy sheriffs, we need to make it clear that depictions of law enforcement officers as pigs in our Nation’s Capital is not acceptable.” Hunter also says that he is friends with Clay, commenting that Clay is a “great guy”. Hunter finishes with the statement, “But you’ve got to respect our men in uniform and what they do.”

Hunter said that “[I] was angry…” and that “Lacy can put it back up, I guess, if he wants to…but I’m allowed to take it down.” Clay was asked to comment on this, but he is yet to respond with an answer to Hunter’s challenging statements.

This is not the first time someone has attempted to, let alone successfully, take down the painting. The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose Police Officers Associations and the Sergeants Benevolent Association of New York have said in an attempt to get Speaker of the House Republican Paul Ryan to remove it, “This false narrative portrays law enforcement professionals as posing a danger to the very communities we serve. That is untrue and this ‘art’ reinforces this false narrative and is disrespectful on so many levels.”

It is important that we respect those who spend all day respecting and protecting us and our loved ones. If a police officer is a pig, then I’d hate to see what I am.

      

( Rep. Duncan Hunter)                                         (Rep. Lacey Clay)

Signing off, this is Jonathan Story with iHoot News.