Basquiat versus the NYPD

In September 1983, deeply shaken by the fatal beating of his friend and fellow street artist Michael Stewart while under arrest, Jean-Michel Basquiat went to Keith Harings studio at 600 Broadway and scrawled his reaction directly onto the wall. The painting, which Haring named Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart), depicts two ruddy-faced NYPD officers wielding bright orange batons in the face of a black figure.
At the time, Basquiat said it could have been me. Michaels death was so traumat