Five Palo Alto police officers filed a lawsuit against the city because it allowed a Black Lives Matter mural depicting a cop killer and anti-law enforcement sentiments.
From The Daily Post in Palo Alto:
In the heat of national protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, City Council authorized the painting of the mural at a June 15, 2020 meeting. In the next two weeks, a group of activists painted the 245-foot long mural in the street.The mural featured several images in each letter of the phrase Black Lives Matter.The suit points out the image of Joanne Chesimard, better known as Assata Shakur, who was convicted in 1977 for the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Wermer Foerster, a white police officer. Shakur was arrested and convicted of Foerster’s murder. She later escaped from prison and fled to Cuba, where she is believed to still be living.The suit also points out that the mural included the logo of the New Black Panthers, which is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group that has encouraged violence against whites, Jews and police officers.“Law enforcement officers, including the plaintiffs, were forced to physically pass and confront the mural and its offensive, discriminatory and harassing iconography every time they entered the Palo Alto Police Department,” said the lawsuit.
The police claim the mural violated the state Fair Employment and Housing Act, but Palo Alto “ratified the conduct and insisted that it remain and persist.”
The National Police Association demanded Palo Alto remove the mural, saying it is “reprehensible” for anyone “to celebrate a convicted police killer.”
The lawsuit continued: “If it is not possible to imagine putting a 17′ tall mural of nurse killer Richard Speck in front of a hospital or putting a 17′ tall mural of Dan White, who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, in front of a mayor’s house, the atrocity of the celebration of a fugitive convicted cop killer in front of Palo Alto’s City Hall is equally reprehensible.”
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