The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, once again slammed a now-canceled mural project that would have honored Iryna Zarutska, a slain Ukrainian refugee living in North Carolina who was allegedly murdered by a career criminal on public transit last year.
"I regret the state of where we are in politics today where absolutely everything is political and controversial and hard," Mayor Brett Smiley said in an interview with The Dark Lady, an LGBT bar in the city.
Facing backlash from the LGBT community and others, the owners of the bar first defended themselves, saying the business faced intense heat.
On Tuesday, the bar said that after "reflecting and learning," the project was officially shut down.
Zarutska was killed on Aug. 22 after she was randomly stabbed from behind on a Charlotte, North Carolina, light-rail train. The suspect in her unprovoked murder is Decarlos Brown Jr., who had a lengthy rap sheet, including convictions for larceny, breaking and entering, and armed robbery.
He had previously served five years in prison.
Fox News Digital reached out to Smiley's office.
Fox News' Louis Casiano Jr. contributed to this report.