"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."
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."
