WASHINGTON _ Missouri Rep. William Lacy Clay and members of the Congressional Black Caucus have returned a controversial painting to a Capital complex wall that was removed Friday by a Republican colleague.
Clay also tried to file theft charges against that colleague, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., although Capitol Police had not indicated to him Tuesday morning whether they will follow through with Clay's complaint.
In a short address in a tunnel between the Capitol and House office buildings, Clay depicted the debate as part of the culture wars dividing the country.
"This is really not about a student art competition anymore," Clay, a St. Louis Democrat, said after he and a handful of colleagues put it back on a wall amidst 400 other winners of a high school art contest sponsored by members of Congress. "It's about defending the Constitution."
He said this just after passing Hunter in the tunnel where the painting hangs. Hunter and Clay, who are good friends and whose congressional offices are next door to one another, didn't speak to each other as they passed.
Hunter, citing 18-year-old artist David Pulphus's depiction of police as animals, which many have interpreted as pigs, said it was offensive.
A scrum of about 15 reporters and photographers who had gathered around Hunter shifted to Clay, who led a handful of Congressional Black Caucus members in putting the painting back up where it originally was.
It may not be there for good, however. Congressional Republicans are discussing removing it officially as a violation of congressional rules on the art that prevents the competition from depicting controversial "contemporary" issues.
Clay said he'd defend the painting through that process as a First Amendment expression of an 18-year-old constituent.
"I don't have a disagreement with that," he said of the process. "But there is a procedure to follow. You can't have culture warriors walking around here like they are in charge of something."
Clay told reporters that he had no opinion on the painting, which police groups and others have criticized as depicting police as hog-like animals. Clay said critics should put themselves in Pulphus's place, as a teenaged black male, who had witnessed the highly publicized shootings of young black men throughout his teen years.
Including, "in his own community," the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson when Pulphus was 16.
Those shootings, Clay said in an interview with the Post-Dispatch, were "animalistic."
While police groups have criticized the painting, Clay received a local police ally over the weekend in St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson.
"Police officers are not art critics," Dotson said during a discussion Saturday night at Harris-Stowe State University kicking off Missouri's official events honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He called Clay a "strong supporter" of police and said Clay's desire to hang the painting is in keeping with protecting the First Amendment.
The painting by former Cardinal Ritter High School Senior Pulphus _ now a college student _ has drawn intense scrutiny after critics noticed that it depicted police officers as animals. Some police groups criticized the painting as divisive and not a true depiction of the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in 2014.
Hunter removed the painting and left it in Clay's office on Friday, saying it offended him and denigrated police. Hunter told the Post-Dispatch he had gotten "thousands" of calls and social media messages in support, many from police officers or their families.
The painting was on display for six months before critics attacked it, in the middle of hundreds of other paintings by high school art contest winners from around the country. Clay on Tuesday blamed "alt-right" media for stirring up the problem, and fellow Congressional Black Caucus members depicted the controversy as an extension of Republican President-elect Donald Trump's attacks on the media.
Hunter said he was making a statement and would not seek to remove it again if Clay puts it back up. But other Republicans, upset at the depiction of police, hinted they may seek official congressional action to take it down permanently.
Clay would fight that.
"I do not agree or disagree with this painting," Clay said after he helped put it back up. But he noted that statues elsewhere in the Capitol depict slaveholders and avowed racists that offend him, but he hasn't demanded they be removed.
"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 said, referring to Pulphus.
At the forum in St. Louis Saturday night, Dotson referred to the painting as the "elephant in the room."
"Sam Dotson can have an opinion and may not like the painting, but Sam Dotson the police chief or any police officer cannot have an opinion about it because that young man has a right to have his voice heard and it's our job to make sure his rights are protected," he said.
