One of the messages that have gotten the most traction and controversy in the anti-racism protests spurred by the death of George Floyd was the call to defund the police.

While the exact meaning of the cry seems differ for everyone, the essence is to either reduce or completely dismantle the police department and reallocate the resources to fund other departments that can fulfill the jobs that the cops are doing, such as taking care of the mentally ill.

All around the US and even in foreign countries, protestors have filled the streets that called for the police to be defunded. This was the case in Milwaukee as well, where protestors had painted the words in paint in front of the city hall.

On Friday however, local media reported that a group of pro-law enforcement protestors pulled a sly one on the mural by replacing the letter ‘u’ with the letter ‘e’, and thus spelling ‘Defend the Police’.

Although the mural was soon restored to deliver the initial message, the slight but massive change in the message already went viral online, sparking debates and arguments over the move.

Even the color of the newly painted letter E seemed to be a symbolic one as blue paint was used. The color blue, along with the movements such as Thin Blue Line, have adopted the color blue as an antithesis to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Milwaukee is one of the major cities in which the anti-racism and anti-police protests have really made a mark because of its proximity with Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by a police officer. Calls to defund the police have filled the streets of Milwaukee since Floyd’s death.

As the controversy over the calls to defund the police intensified online, one of the protestors who participated in painting the mural explained on Facebook that his group did not call for the disbanding of the police force.

Instead, according to Jeremy Wilbur, the call is a catchy way of calling for a reallocation of the resources so that the root causes of crime, such as education and housing, can be addressed. He emphasized that the protestors did not hate police officers as a whole.

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Replaced!