‘It’s going to hurt’: Salt Lake City to discuss future of Fleet Block murals

SALT LAKE CITY — City-owned buildings featuring murals of people killed in confrontations with police are facing demolition and Ruby Mercado is hopeful an alternative emerges to remember them.

“I think it’s something so profound to physically see something and have a constant reminder that these people matter and continue to be loved,” said Mercado. Her brother Jovany Mercado, killed in a 2019 confrontation with Ogden police, is one of 29 people depicted on the white-washed walls of the buildings on Salt Lake City’s 9-acre Fleet Block parcel off the southwest corner of 300 West and 800 South.

No firm plan to replace the murals has been decided, but Salt Lake City representatives plan to meet Thursday with family members of those depicted in red and pink paint on the Fleet Block structures to discuss the matter. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. and will be held at the Sorenson Unity Center at 1383 S. 900 West in Salt Lake City.

“We’re not really aware of anything. We’re really going to the meeting blind. We’re heavy in the heart,” said Rae James Duckworth, with Black Lives Matter Utah and a cousin of one of the men memorialized on the wall. Bobby Ray Duckworth was killed in a police confrontation in 2019 in Carbon County. “It’s going to hurt.”

A Salt Lake City spokesman said the city is open to doing something, even if specifics haven’t yet publicly emerged.

“The Fleet Block murals memorializing victims of negative police interactions are important to Salt Lake City,” Andrew Wittenberg, spokesman for Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, said in a statement to KSL.com. “While the existing buildings with the murals will be redeveloped in the future, the city is committed to integrating social justice and the cultural legacy of the block in future redevelopment plans. Salt Lake City intends to memorialize the murals in future plans.”

Debate over possible redevelopment of the Fleet Block site, which used to house the city of Salt Lake’s vehicle fleet maintenance facility, dates back at least to 2016. The structures at the location are vacant and city officials envision clearing of the site to make way for housing and new development. “The future redevelopment of the Fleet Block is an opportunity to generate more affordable housing public open space and mixed-use development to better support families, single residents and the broader community,” Wittenberg said.

After the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota, though, the evolution of the site took a turn. A mural of Floyd took shape on a wall of one of the Fleet Block buildings, more followed and the site became “a gathering place to remember those lost and to protest racial injustice,” reads the city website focused on the Fleet Block plans. Now, 29 murals in all depicting people killed police confrontations cover the walls, visible to traffic on busy 300 West.

The city says the Fleet Block structures are unstable, however, and can’t be salvaged. Moreover, the soil at the site is contaminated and faces environmental remediation.

The redevelopment plans, while lacking a firm time line, “will lead to the demolition of the existing buildings, which include the murals,” reads the Fleet Block website. “However, a memorial space will be included in the future of the block and commissioned artwork will be included in the public open space on the (southeastern corner) of the block.”

Mercado, for one, would like to see something in place of the murals, in part to keep attention on the issue of violent and deadly incidents involving police and the public. “Something needs to change in our policing so our officers are safe just as much as our lives are. These things shouldn’t happen on the regular basis that they do,” she said.

Family members of those depicted in the murals are to take part in Thursday’s meeting, but Duckworth put a broader invitation out to to the public. “It’s going to be a really heavy experience. We would appreciate it if our community would show up,” she said.