MILWAUKEE — County Executive Scott Walker has ordered that a newly hung mural in the country courthouse be moved from a heavy-traffic area to a sparsely traveled area after receiving complaints from visitors.

Walker's office said several people, including police officers, complained about "WattsHappeneding," an 8-by-16-foot painting depicting Martin Luther King Jr. and other black leaders, as well as disturbing images of social unrest and division in Los Angeles.

Marquette University's Haggerty Museum of Art recently lent the mural to Milwaukee County as the first piece in a new courthouse public art series that Walker began. He promoted it after enduring earlier criticism for rejecting a sculpture that was to have been displayed at the city's airport.

Haggerty Museum director Curtis Carter said the mural had been displayed this winter without complaints. He said he was shocked to hear of the current complaints and was caught off guard by the decision to move the piece.

"It's not the job of lawyers and judges and police officers to be censuring public art," Carter said.

"The idea was to share with people a positive vision and celebrate African-American life and get people to think about tough issues around social change," Carter said of the mural. "It's a very provocative piece."

County officials said some sheriff's deputies and officers objected to references to the Rodney King beating case and what they saw as anti-law enforcement images.

At least one judge and a prosecutor thought the pictures could bias prospective jurors; some employees thought it was too provocative for children, said Walker's chief of staff, Jim Villa.

Villa said the concerns were persuasive enough for Walker to move the piece to the third floor of the court house, which sees few of the 7,000 people who enter the building each day. The county executive, county lawyers and budget staff work on the third floor.

The mural was to have been formally unveiled in a ceremony on May 9. Walker said in a press release that he would post signs inviting people to visit the mural upstairs.

The work, commissioned by the Haggerty and completed in Milwaukee by Los Angeles muralist Elliot Pinkney, mixes peaceful and provocative images affecting Watts. It honors King and other path-blazing black officials such as former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Hopeful images include doves and a conjoined Mexican and American flag.

It also depicts a looming, skeletal figure with a gunshot wound to the forehead, bandana-clad silhouettes symbolizing gang violence and newspaper headlines recalling the beating of Rodney King in 1992 and the Watts riots of 1965.

It was part of the Haggerty's exhibition titled "Watts: Art & Social Change in Los Angeles, 1964-2002."

Carter said thousands of schoolchildren saw the mural and talked with the artist when it was displayed earlier this year.

"They seemed to appreciate the artist and the imagery very much," he said.

Walker has been stung by criticism after canceling a contract between the county and internationally known artist, Dennis Oppenheim, to design a sculpture called the "Blue Shirt."

Walker opposed the project during last year's election campaign and took advantage of a missed deadline to kill the project, the first piece approved by the county's public art program.

Oppenheim has filed a $55,000 claim against Milwaukee County over the dispute and has said he was looking for an alternative site. The claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, offers to drop all legal challenges if Milwaukee County assists in the installation of "Blue Shirt" at a new location.