Metro Transit, the public transit agency serving Minneapolis and St. Paul, selected a freelance artist whose portfolio includes artwork depicting two women beating a police officer to design a Pride-themed wrap for city buses, then quietly deleted its own announcement after the connection surfaced.
The artist, Alexis Politz, a self-described "queer freelance illustrator and designer living in Minneapolis," revealed the finished bus wrap design on Instagram on June 4. The wrap was scheduled to run on city buses through the end of June and appear near the front of the Twin Cities Pride Parade on June 28.
But a closer look at Politz's body of work raised a question Metro Transit apparently never bothered to ask before handing over the project: What else has this artist created? The answer, as the Daily Mail reported, included a gallery show at a Minneapolis venue called This and That Gallery, running from March 7 through March 28, titled "EXERCISE YOUR DEMONS." Among its pieces: an illustration of two women assaulting a police officer.
Politz described the gallery show on a personal website in terms that leave little room for ambiguity. The artist called it a "cheeky nod to the grueling weight of being a femme in a society" and said the work was about "hot, sexy people fighting their demons, being strong and slutty in this patriarchal hellscape of a world."
One of the "demons" those hot, sexy people were fighting, it turned out, was a uniformed cop.
Alpha News reporter Liz Collin shared a screengrab of Metro Transit's deleted announcement on X, drawing fresh attention to the agency's selection. Metro Transit's original post had described Politz as someone who "normally works with bands, businesses and organizations on logos, apparel and print materials." It made no mention of the anti-police artwork, and the agency says it didn't know about it.
A Metro Transit spokesperson offered a carefully worded response after Collin flagged the controversy:
"We were not aware of the artwork in question, which appears to have been created after the artist was selected."
That claim deserves scrutiny. The "EXERCISE YOUR DEMONS" gallery ran from March 7 through March 28 at This and That Gallery in Minneapolis. Metro Transit has not disclosed when exactly it selected Politz, saying only that the announcement went out "early last month." Without a firm timeline, the agency's assertion that the anti-police piece came after the selection is unverifiable, and conveniently exculpatory.
The spokesperson added that Metro Transit "strives to provide a welcoming environment" and "works with a variety of local artists whose work has appeared on vehicles and at shelters." The agency also stated it "does not condone violence of any kind" and pledged to "give more consideration to artists' total body of work as part of our selection process moving forward."
That last line is an admission wrapped in bureaucratic gauze. It concedes the agency failed to vet the artist it chose to represent the transit system on public buses paid for by taxpayers. The vetting, apparently, will start next time.
What Metro Transit did not say is whether it took any concrete action, pulling the wrap, ending the contract, or removing the limited-edition Go-To bus cards Politz said were produced with the artwork. The total cost of the project to taxpayers remains undisclosed.
Politz, for one, seemed thrilled with the arrangement. In the June 4 Instagram post, the artist wrote that the design featured "a bunch of cute people on it, real bus lines and stops and a couple historically gay places like 19 Bar, Loring Park and the beach obviously." Politz also thanked someone named "Missy" on the Metro Transit team and urged followers to "go ride the big gay bus!!!"
The anti-police imagery in Politz's broader portfolio is not some obscure footnote. It was displayed publicly in Minneapolis, the same city where the artist was then tapped to decorate public transit vehicles. A basic web search would have turned it up. The hostility toward law enforcement that runs through certain corners of Minneapolis's activist art scene is hardly a secret, particularly in a city still dealing with the fallout from 2020.
This is not the first time anti-police sentiment from public figures has drawn sharp backlash once it reached a wider audience. The pattern is familiar: the posts go up, the backlash arrives, the posts come down, and a spokesperson issues a statement about "moving forward."
Social media users in the Twin Cities were not buying Metro Transit's explanation. One taxpayer wrote bluntly: "As a taxpayer, I am disgusted by this waste of money to propagate this garbage." Another argued that "bus wraps that advertise and generate revenue are the only ones that should be utilized. Otherwise buses can run with their normal paint scheme."
A third user cut to the core of the contradiction:
"Wow, that's clearly someone who needs to get some help. They like to talk inclusive, but that's just plain rebellious. Hypocrites. Thumbing your nose at the law and society is not art and it's not a good message. Nor is it a good idea."
Becka Thompson, who identified herself as a former elected official, offered a sharper assessment on social media. "The moment the grants die down this nonsense ends," Thompson wrote. "Unfortunately [there's] still lots of money to launder." Thompson did not specify which grants she was referencing, and her use of "launder" is her own characterization, but the frustration behind it reflects a growing impatience among residents who see public dollars flowing toward projects that seem designed to provoke rather than serve.
That frustration is not unique to Minneapolis. Across blue-governed cities, taxpayers have watched institutions amplify voices openly hostile to law enforcement while those same cities struggle with public safety. The disconnect between what city leaders fund and what residents need has become a defining feature of progressive urban governance.
Politz's client list, as displayed on the artist's own website, includes Planned Parenthood, the National Parks Conservation Association, and Target. None of those affiliations would have raised red flags. But the "EXERCISE YOUR DEMONS" gallery, mounted in the same city where Metro Transit operates, was not exactly hidden. It ran for three weeks at a Minneapolis venue. The artwork was on Politz's website.
Metro Transit's defense, that it didn't know, is either a confession of negligence or a tacit acknowledgment that the agency's selection process involves no meaningful due diligence. Neither explanation inspires confidence in how public funds are being spent.
The agency deleted its own announcement rather than defend the choice publicly. That tells you what you need to know about how the decision looks in daylight.
The broader environment in which this happened matters. Minneapolis has become a case study in what happens when progressive political movements gain institutional power in major cities. The same ideological currents that produced "defund the police" as a mainstream slogan in 2020 now flow through cultural institutions, grant programs, and public art commissions. The people making these decisions may genuinely not see the problem, which is itself the problem.
Even some voices once aligned with progressive movements have begun to question the institutional capture. Former activists have called out the disconnect between activist rhetoric and the lived experience of residents in the communities these movements claim to champion.
Several questions remain open. Metro Transit has not disclosed the cost of the bus wrap project. It has not explained its artist selection process in any detail. It has not said whether the wrap was removed or whether Politz's contract was modified in any way after the controversy surfaced.
The Daily Mail reported that it reached out to both Metro Transit and Politz for comment. No responses were noted.
What is clear is that a publicly funded transit agency in a major American city chose an artist whose work includes a depiction of violence against police, put that artist's design on public buses, promoted it with limited-edition transit cards, and planned to feature it at the front of a parade, all without, by its own account, spending five minutes reviewing the artist's other work.
Metro Transit says it will do better next time. Taxpayers in Minneapolis might reasonably wonder why "next time" is always the plan.
