A Missouri congressman is demanding criminal charges against Rep. Duncan Hunter who yanked a student’s controversial painting off the U.S. Capitol walls Friday, according to the Washington Post.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., said his staff met Monday with members of the Capitol Police to press theft charges against Hunter, R-Alpine, who removed the painting Friday and delivered it to Clay’s office as he left a Republican conference meeting where the artwork was discussed.

“He had no right to take that picture down,” Clay told the Post Monday just off the House floor. “It’s thievery.”

The painting, by a recent high school graduate from Clay’s district, depicts a scene of civil unrest inspired by the 2014 events in Ferguson, Mo., and other recent protests against police led by African Americans. Several figures are depicted as animals, and some pro-police activists have said the rendering evokes derogatory images of police as pigs.


It is part of a national art competition, one of 435 artworks chosen by local panels of artists to hang in the underground tunnel between the Capitol and the Cannon House Office Building.

Some Republican lawmakers have called for the painting to be taken down in recent weeks, but Hunter took matters into his own hands Friday.

Clay is planning to rehang the painting Tuesday morning, joined by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other sympathetic lawmakers. He emotionally defended the right of the young artist, David Pulphus, to hang his art in the Capitol to reporters Monday.

Pulphus’s family, Clay said, is “full of police officers, so they have respect for police officers. He just doesn’t have respect for police who use the cover of a blue uniform to do animalistic things to people.”


“These are his impressions. Those are his feelings. That’s how he formed his opinion, and he expressed it in his art. So what’s wrong with that?” Clay continued. “Any black parent would tell you that they have to have this conversation with their children about police and how to act around them, so that’s the conversation we need to be having here. Not about taking some kid’s picture off the wall — it should be about, how do we change these attitudes and improve the relationships between police and the black community?”

Hunter’s top aide brushed off Clay’s threats of prosecution Monday.

“Hunter has high regard from Congressman Clay, and this is nothing personal,” said Joe Kasper, his chief of staff. “But we’re less than zero percent worried about this whatsoever.”

A Capitol Police spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment Monday on whether the matter remains under investigation. Clay said the police who met with his staff were “befuddled” and gave no clear indication of how they would proceed: “They are trying to figure out what they’re going to do.”


Rep. Cedric L. Richmond, D-La., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said lawmakers had a simple request for Hunter’s treatment: “We want him to get whatever charge a private citizen would get if they walked into the Capitol and took down a painting.”

Kasper said that “that’s misrepresenting the issue significantly,” and compared the Capitol with the “Wild West.” He referred to a 2006 incident in which then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney was accused of striking a police officer who did not recognize her as a member of Congress and stopped her after she talked past a security checkpoint.

“You understand the latitude members are given around the U.S. Capitol complex,” Kasper said. “He’s trying to make a point that this was a form of expression, and rightfully so, but so is taking it down.”


Original online story by Gary Warth of the Union-Tribune:

A controversial painting that depicts police officers as animals is expected to be reinstalled on a congressional wall just days after Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, personally removed it.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., invited members of the Congressional Black Caucus to join him this morning to put back the painting that won an art competition he sponsored.

In a statement issued before he was scheduled to re-install the painting, Clay called the issue a “manufactured controversy.”


A panel in Clay’s district selected the painting as the region’s first-place winner in the 2016 national Congressional Art Competition. It was created by David Pulphus when he was a senior at Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School in St. Louis.

The painting had hung in the Cannon House Office Building tunnel to the U.S. Capitol but was removed by Hunter on Friday after complaints from law officials, conservative bloggers and other members of Congress.

The move to reinstall the painting was first reported by Politico.

“It is just pathetic that some Republican members and alt-right media types, who constantly refer to themselves as constitutional conservatives, don’t think that same document protects the fundamental free speech rights of my 18-year old constituent,” Clay said about the painting, which Pulphus called “Untitled #1.”


The painting depicts a clash between police and protesters on the street. One gun-wielding officer has a head that resembles a boar — one San Diego sheriff union official called it a warthog — while other officers’ heads appear to be a horse and a dog. One protester appears to be a panther or wolf.

Pulphus could not be reached for comment Friday or Monday.

The painting was considered offensive by several members of Congress and law enforcement organizations, including the Peace Officers Research Association of California.

In a letter to Clay, the association wrote that the painting “glorifies protesters moving down an urban street holding signs that read ‘Stop Killing’ and ‘Racism Kills’ while police officers are depicted as gun-toting pigs standing in the way of justice.”


Clay, however, said not all law enforcement members found the painting offensive, and noted that St. Louis Police Chief Samuel Dotson discussed the issue at a public event with him last week.

“He reminded the audience that I have been a strong supporter of law enforcement throughout my three decades of public service,” Clay said.

Clay’s office did not participate in the judging, but the congressman did hold a reception for Pulphus and released a statement calling the painting “a colorful landscape of symbolic characters representing social injustice, the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, and the lingering elements of inequality in modern American society.”

Clay’s district includes Ferguson, where riots broke out in 2014 after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed black man.


Following a meeting of House Republicans on Friday where the painting again was discussed, Hunter personally took it off the wall and dropped it off at Clay’s office.

Hunter’s Chief of Staff Joe Kasper said Monday that the congressman has no plans to take the painting down again if it is reinstalled by Clay.

“Hunter’s intent was to make the strongest possible statement in support of law enforcement and the outpouring of support has been amazing,” Kasper wrote in an email. “But he took it down with the idea that as easy as it unscrewed from the wall, it can go back up. He’s got no plans to take it down again and engage in some back and forth.

“But there’s enough attention on the issue now,” Kasper continued. “The artist expressed himself, as did Clay for giving the artwork his approval. And Hunter expressed himself, by taking it down and returning it. At least for a few days, America’s police officers and law enforcement were able to take satisfaction in knowing they were no longer being openly insulted within the walls of the U.S. Capitol.”


Clay reiterated that he did not judge the painting, but supports the artist and freedom of expression.

“I do not agree or disagree with this painting,” he said. “But I will fight to defend this young man’s right to express himself because his artwork is true for him and he is entitled to that protection under the law.

Clay called the painting “a provocative, symbolic representation of the great anger, pain, frustration and deep deficit in trust for local law enforcement that many young African Americas feel in their hearts.”

“So the larger, much more fundamental question is…why does this young artist feel that way?” he said. “And what can we do as leaders of a compassionate and just nation to remedy that?”


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gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

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