New York City graffiti artist Alan Ket has the permission of an Inwood building owner to paint freely on their outside wall, but the NYPD doesn’t care. DNAinfo reports that the department sent two plainclothes officers to cover up his latest mural yesterday, calling it a “bad idea.” The art featured the text “We know the real … Murderers,” the last word blown-up and bullet-ridden, surrounded by tombstones for various controversial organizations: McDonald’s, Halliburton, Shell Oil, Bank of America, that kind of thing. Oh, and the NYPD is in there too.
“I can’t confront them, because I don’t want problems,” said the building’s owner in Spanish. “There is no freedom of expression. It’s a bomb, and now here I am in the middle of a bomb.”
The NYPD claimed neighbors were complaining about the “violent” message, but there’s also a movement of locals defending the mural on Facebook’s Inwood Community Group. “Isn’t great art supposed to be controversial?” wondered one resident. Here’s a before and after of the wall.
“Go figure,” wrote the artist upon hearing the news. But being a political graffiti artist and all, he’s undeterred: “I will just paint another one.”
