Members of Erie Equal wanted to ‘start a conversation’ about reallocating funds used for policing to other areas.
Members of the group Erie Equal spent hours Friday working on a sidewalk chalk mural outside City Hall with a simple but direct message: “Defund the police. Invest in community.”
By Saturday morning, the message and the artwork accompanying it were being scrubbed away.
The move by the city drew complaints within the Erie Equal Facebook group, a new page dedicated to social justice issues that has quickly added nearly 3,000 members.
City officials on Tuesday defended the decision, and said that leaving the mural in place would open the floodgates for political debate written on city property. Mayor Joe Schember said the city would try to block future unauthorized murals.
“If we let this stay, we’d have to let Nazis put things on City Hall and racists put things on City Hall, so we cannot allow that to start,” Schember said in an interview.
The mural was not painted on City Hall but on a sidewalk alongside the building at the southern edge of Perry Square. Schember said it took several hours and multiple cleaning techniques to remove the mural from the sidewalk on Saturday morning.
Jenessa Williams, an Erie Equal organizer, said group members developed the idea, designed the mural and then mixed crushed-up chalk with Mop & Glo, a floor cleaner, to make the chalk easier to apply and the mural last longer — the same technique chalk artists have used at CelebrateErie’s Chalk Walk.
“It was mostly so people would walk by, see it, maybe start a conversation,” Williams said.
Calls to defund police departments have gained steam across the United States since the death of George Floyd, a Black Minneapolis resident who died in the custody of police there on May 25.
Advocates for defunding police departments generally want some of the money that goes toward policing to be reallocated to other community resources, such as mental health counseling and job programs.
Williams said the quick removal of the Erie Equal mural runs counter to Schember’s calls for diversity and inclusion in the city.
“This is not the way to do it,” she said. “You’re going the complete opposite way.”
Williams said group members had planned other murals, but that Erie Equal will not sponsor or oversee them because of how quickly the city removed the first one.
Schember said police are watching and will ask people to stop if they begin chalking another mural.
“We’re not going to permit another drawing to take place,” he said.
The removal of the mural does not present a problem under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to free speech, said John Mizner, an Erie lawyer who has handled First Amendment cases.
In general, the government has the right to regulate the time, place and manner of speech as long as it does not regulate speech based on content. If the city is consistent about removing all unauthorized murals, Mizner said, it will not run afoul of the First Amendment.
“What you cannot regulate is the content,” Mizner said. “That is the essence of free speech.”
Ed Betza, the city’s solicitor, said the mural, which was placed near the Erie Bureau of Police headquarters at City Hall, “invites responses.”
“It’s just not in the best interest of the city to have people placing political messages, no matter what the message is, on sidewalks that are public walkways,” Betza said. “If we allow one message, then we end up allowing all messages, and that’s just not in the best interest of the city or the residents.”
The Erie Reader and YourErie first reported on the removal of the mural over the weekend.
After the mural’s removal, Erie Equal members on Facebook also raised questions about the presence of two “Thin Blue Line” American flags in the windows of City Hall. One group member called for others to ask for the removal of the flags, which she described as “divisive.”
The flags have become a flash point amid a national reckoning on the role of police. Activists say the flag encourages an “us versus them” mentality and note that it was flown at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
But police say the flags commemorate fallen law enforcement officers and evoke the role police play in maintaining order.
Schember said he does not believe the flag holds a political message.
“We are committed to bringing Erie together, and this flag does nothing in the way of that,” he said. “People are misinterpreting what it says. All it’s saying is the police are here.”
Mizner said it’s unclear how the presence of the flags meshes with the city’s decision to remove Erie Equal’s Defund the Police mural.
“I think, at a minimum, it poses an ethical dilemma for the city,” he said.
Original Article By: Madeleine O’Neill at moneill@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @ETNoneill.