Pro-Trump artist puts up banner depicting Bill de Blasio with Lady Liberty’s severed head as he claims the mayor has ruined NYC and hates cops
- Scott LoBaido claimed about Mayor Bill de Blasio: ‘New York has turned into a s***hole because of this guy’
- The Staten Island artist said about the Manhattan-born politician: ‘He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters… people who built this city’
- LoBaido was told by police to take down the banner an hour and a half after it went up over a bridge but he plans to bring it back in another place
- He was also infuriated after someone wrote ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘BLM’ on a thin blue line he painted outside a precinct because they found it ‘divisive’
- ‘That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,’ LoBaido claimed
A pro-Trump artist has put up a banner over the Staten Island Expressway depicting Bill de Blasio holding up Lady Liberty’s severed head as he claims the New York City Mayor is turning the Big Apple into a ‘s***hole.’
Scott LoBaido – who has been painting murals for 25 years – created a mock-up that shows the 59-year-old politician smirking while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt.
He explained about the image which appears as if blood is dripping from the statue’s head neck:’ It’s what he’s doing to New York, he’s severing the head of the greatest city on earth.’
His eye-catching image came as the real statue – a gift from the French who were allies in defeating the British during the American Revolution – reopened to the public.
![The artist said it was to 'fire up the masses'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31046148-8547525-image-a-55_1595397191742.jpg)
A banner depicting Bill de Blasio holding up Lady Liberty’s severed head appeared over the Staten Island Expressway on Tuesday. The artist said it was to ‘fire up the masses’
![Scott LoBaido claimed about Mayor Bill de Blasio: 'New York has turned into a s***hole because of this guy'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31046120-8547525-image-a-56_1595397308766.jpg)
Scott LoBaido claimed about Mayor Bill de Blasio: ‘New York has turned into a s***hole because of this guy’
But as people began returned to Liberty Island and its neighboring Ellis Island to commemorate its history as a site for processing immigration from 1892 to 1954, across the water LoBaido was making his own statement over exit 13B at rush hour.
It evokes memories of the Tyler Shields image that depicted comedian Kathy Griffin holding President Trump’s decapitated head in 2017. It sparked an FBI investigation, lost her jobs and garnered her death threats.
LoBaido’s anger comes from the mayor’s response the recent Black Lives Matter protests.
The mayor has opted to take $1billion of the NYPD’s $6billion funding and inject it into housing projects and youth initiatives in a bid to combat crime. Trump has threatened to be troops on the streets, prompting some cities to look into taking legal action against it.
De Blasio too explored his creative sign and took to the street with volunteers to help them paints a Black Lives Matter mural, which President Trump denounced and said would denigrate the luxury 5th Avenue shopping area.
![The banner evokes memories of Kathy Griffin depicted holding Trump's severed head in a 2017 photo](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31046744-8547525-image-a-64_1595397476071.jpg)
![The banner had to come down 90 minutes after it went up, upon the request of police](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31046144-8547525-image-m-63_1595397470937.jpg)
The banner evokes memories of Kathy Griffin (left) depicted holding Trump’s severed head in a 2017 photo. The banner had to come down 90 minutes after it went up, upon the request of police
![The Staten Island artist said about the Manhattan-born politician (left in Staten Island on June 19): 'He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters… people who built this city'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31047132-8547525-image-a-57_1595397374870.jpg)
The Staten Island artist said about the Manhattan-born politician (left in Staten Island on June 19): ‘He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters… people who built this city’
De Blasio responded to Trump’s tweet: ‘Black people BUILT 5th Ave and so much of this nation. Your ‘luxury’ came from THEIR labor, for which they have never been justly compensated. We are honoring them. The fact that you see it as denigrating your street is the definition of racism.’
LoBaido told the New York Post that the authorities built NYC.
‘New York has turned into a s***hole because of this guy,’ LoBaido said about the Manhattan-born mayor. ‘He hates the true New Yorkers: police officers, firefighters… people who built this city.’
The Black Lives Matter mural has been vandalized a number of times and de Blasio’s critics have lashed out at him because the artwork outside Trump Tower has been touched up with paint faster than various graffiti around the city that shone a negative light on police.
LoBaido did his own road mural of thin blue line outside the 122nd Precinct on Monday in support of police.
![He was also infuriated after someone wrote 'Black Lives Matter' and 'BLM' on a thin blue line he painted outside a precinct because they found it 'divisive'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31046102-8547525-image-a-66_1595397592522.jpg)
!['That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,' he claimed](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/22/06/31046106-8547525-image-a-67_1595397592528.jpg)
He was also infuriated after someone wrote ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘BLM’ on a thin blue line he painted outside a precinct because they found it ‘divisive’. ‘That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,’ he claimed. He painted it blue again
He was infuriated after someone wrote ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘BLM’ on it.
‘That thin blue line separates anarchy from civilization,’ he claimed.
He told the Post he pulled the Liberty stunt to ‘fire up the masses’. He reported many vehicles blowing their horns in response to the striking image. He was asked by police to take it down an hour and a half after it went up.
He plans for it to reappear elsewhere soon.
The person who sparked his thin blue line fury later came forward. A 21-year-old woman named Skylar said she didn’t like the ‘divisiveness’ it created.
‘It seemed like a direct response to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ mural, and it didn’t sit right with me,’ she explained to S Live.
‘Many people drove by, cursing at me, telling me to ‘get out,’ ‘get off the Island,’ ‘you hate America,’ but that’s not the case,’ she said. ‘I did it because I love this country and I see the potential in this country, so that’s why I did it.’
LoBaido repainted his blue line and it hadn’t been touched as of Tuesday night.