‘It’s just wrong.’ Fresno mural honoring violence victims removed. Family member asks why

This story is part of the Central Valley News Collaborative — a bilingual, community journalism project funded by the Central Valley Community Foundation and with technology and training support from Microsoft Corp. The collaboration includes The Fresno Bee, Valley Public Radio, Vida en el Valle, Radio Bilingüe and the Institute for Media & Public Trust at Fresno State.

Fresno artist Omar “Super” Huerta spent months painting his mural ‘The Hall of Angels’ in downtown Fresno featuring the portraits of 13 Black and brown faces lost to violence, hoping to honor their lives and bring a sense of comfort to grieving families.

For a community that has been wracked by violent crime, Huerta’s mural at 436 N. Blackstone Ave. was a place for bereaved family members to memorialize their loved ones. But on Thursday, Huerta woke up to a string of messages questioning why the 40-foot-wide mural was gone. The wall the mural was on had been painted over with a thick, glossy layer of white paint.

“I never want to wake up to that again,” he said in a Friday interview with The Bee. “It’s not just that people hire me to do portraits for them. There are a lot of stories behind these murals. I wanted to help the community in hopes that they get justice, so it’s devastating, and it’s just terrible for all of the families grieving.”

It’s not clear who ordered the removal of the mural. Huerta said he’s tried to reach the building’s owner by phone but had not heard back as of Friday.

The building’s owner could not be reached for comment Friday.

Tina Ruiz regularly visited the mural to see the portrait of her 10-year-old nephew Angel “Bubba” Hernandez, who was killed in June in a hit-and-run collision near Woodward Park. She and her children would leave balloons, flowers, and candles to honor him. She said the mural’s removal was a “heartless” and “selfish” decision.

“That’s all we had left of him,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “My nephew was the world to me. He was all we had left of my brother, who passed away in February. It sucks that somebody would go and do that. It’s just wrong.”

The mural’s removal also drew outrage online when Huerta posted about the incident Thursday. Hundreds of community members and many people who said they were relatives of the victims said they were deeply upset and offered support to Huerta.

“How could they do something like this? My baby cousin was on there, just breaks my heart all over again, just bringing tears to my eyes,” one person wrote.

Alejandro Limon works at Casa Camacho, a pharmacy inside the Blackstone Avenue building. In an interview Friday, he said he’d heard complaints from many people who were confused and upset by the mural’s removal.

“A lot of people came here (Thursday), very angry,” Limon said.

Many of the faces depicted on Huerta’s mural were Fresno natives who lost their lives to gun violence, hit-and-runs, tragic accidents, or other violent events. His work includes the portraits of 2-year-old Thaddeus Sran, who was found dead in an orchard west of Madera last year; Charlotte Ethridge, a mother of two shot to death in her apartment in April and 16-year-old Isiah Murrietta-Golding, who was killed by Fresno police in 2017.

Other locals, including 45-year-old street vendor Lorenzo Perez, 8-year-old Samantha Cruz Pedro, and 29-year-old Manjit Singh, have also been depicted in his paintings.

Huerta did not report the mural’s removal to the police.

He said he did not have a written agreement with the building’s owner to put the mural there, though he said he had been painting murals on that wall for more than six years.

He said he plans on repainting the mural at a different location. He said he’s looking for a new space and collecting donations for painting materials. Huerta aims to get started on the new mural within the next couple of weeks and will be painting for multiple hours every other day to expedite its completion. He hopes it will provide some much-needed relief to the struggling families, he said.

“There’s a lot of family members who are hurting,” he said. “Finding out who did it isn’t going to make things better, and it’s not going to bring those paintings back. The solution is to move forward and repaint them. Eventually, one by one, it’s going to get done.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2021 at 8:00 AM.