A flag honoring law enforcement was removed for the Connecticut State Capitol building Tuesday because Democrats said it could offend African Americans.
“In the context of history behind it [the flag] a lot of my members expressed a lot of concerns especially in this building,” Connecticut State Rep. Brandon McGee, a Democrat and chairman of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, said, according to a local NBC affiliate.
“We are not anti- you know — police, we support our men in blue,” he said, “but we also know that given the history around black people, people of color with respect to this particular issue. I just think it was necessary to share our concerns with our leadership.”
A wooden plaque with a “thin blue flag” — a black-and-white American flag with one of the horizontal lines changes to blue, altered to pay homage to U.S. law enforcement — was donated by a member of the State Capitol Police.
Similar flags have been seen at counterprotests to Black Lives Matter rallies across the country, and in 2017, a version of the flag was removed from an Oregon courthouse after it was associated with white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
The handmade plaque was hung in the Police Memorial Hall, which connects the Legislative Office Building to the Capitol. It was taken down Tuesday morning.
The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents law enforcement officers, said that the flag’s removal from the building was an attack on police officers.
“I’m saddened and disappointed that in times the times were in now that something like this could actually happen,” John Krupinsky, president of the Connecticut State Fraternal Order Of Police, said, adding they would like to see the plaque put back up.
