Unfinished Tribute To Iryna Zarutska Ripped Down After Mayor Called It ‘Divisive’

America has become so divided in large part because the left has made it common practice to label everything they don’t like as “divisive.”

That self-fulfilling prophecy played out yet again recently, this time in Providence, Rhode Island, where a group of locals prepared to display a mural in memory of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska, who was fatally stabbed aboard a commuter train in North Carolina.

Fox News reported that the large piece of art had been commissioned for a wall of The Dark Lady, a local gay bar, adding:

Artist Ian Gaudreau confirmed the news that the artwork was going to be removed after local outrage.

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“A lot of people voiced their frustrations, and voices were heard, and the work is coming down as a reaction to that,” Gaudreau told WJAR-TV Monday.

The mural’s removal came as residents and elected officials complained about the artwork. The office of Mayor Brett Smiley told Fox News that he wanted the artwork taken down, saying that the art is “divisive and does not represent Providence.”

“The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like the one across the county is divisive and does not represent Providence,” Smiley said in a statement.

He said he continued to “encourage our community to support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than divide us.”

But that backlash only drove others in the community to speak out more forcefully in favor of the mural:

For white liberals, her attacker is the actual victim… soon enough, they’ll paint a mural of him.

— Lonestar Spartee (@lonestarspartee) May 13, 2026

Bet these same people idolized George Floyd. They have their priorities messed up.

— Renatta Oxendine (@Renatta) May 12, 2026

It was NOT local outrage. It was the outrage of the local MAYOR who didn't like being reminded daily of the failure of his party's failures.

— Herr HoppenFlopper (@Bert0000007) May 13, 2026

Some are taking action beyond posting on social media, as the New York Post reported:

Chairman of the Narragansett Republican Party Anthony D’Ellena created a petition in an effort to keep the mural of Zarutska in Providence.

“This is exactly what Democrats do — they try to erase the memory of their victims and they don’t fix their soft-on-crime policies,” D’Ellena told WPRI-TV. “They erase the evidence, so no one sees the deadly price of their policies.”

“I want a local business here in Rhode Island to see this petition and to invite the artist to do a mural on their business,” he said.

Here’s a recap of the tragic events surrounding Zarutska’s death: