Duncan Hunter personally takes down painting in Capitol depicting cops as pigs

Rep. Duncan Hunter on Friday personally removed a painting that depicted police officers as pigs and had been displayed in the U.S. Capitol complex.

“I was angry,” Mr. Hunter, California Republican, told Fox News. “I’ve seen the press [reporting] on this for about a week or so. … I’m in the Marine Corps. If you want it done, just call us.”

Mr. Hunter said he delivered the artwork to the office of Rep. William Lacy Clay, Missouri Democrat. Last year, a high school student had won Mr. Clay’s annual congressional art competition with the piece.

The painting shows one officer pointing a weapon and people holding signs displaying slogans like “racism kills.”

Law enforcement groups had strongly opposed the decision to hang the piece in the Capitol complex and called for it to be taken down.

“Hatred of law enforcement should not be displayed in the halls of the United States House of Representatives,” the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs’ board of directors wrote this week.

Mr. Clay’s office said in announcing the winners of the competition last year that the painting “portrays 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.”