ABC News Today

The Minnesota Wild have walked away from a promotion that would have seen a fan raffle with “thin blue line” jerseys.

The promotion was part of the Wild’s “Hometown Heroes” series aimed at celebrating Minnesota’s “special community of law enforcement officers and dispatchers, firefighters, first responders and essential frontline workers,” the team’s website says .

The thin blue line jerseys were originally part of Law Enforcement Appreciation Night on Nov. 1 when the Wild hosted the Montreal Canadiens.

While the event is still going on, the Wild have pulled the jersey giveaway after backlash on social media.

Some argued it was in bad taste given that the Twin Cities were at the center of civil unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, with Wild himself tweeting on the anniversary of Floyd’s killing that he “reminds us our call to action and our commitment to driving social change and fostering inclusion.”

In response to the controversy, Wild said: “We understand that the symbol of the blue and black flag means many things to many people. Our only intention was to show support for law enforcement for the exceptional work they do in the our local communities. will work hard to show appreciation to diverse groups in ways that best reflect our shared community values.”

Although the “Prime Blue Line” originally represented the law enforcement line between criminals and the public, the flag has increasingly been co-opted by white supremacists, especially when the flag was flown alongside Confederate flags during a racist demonstration after the 2017 church massacre in Charlottesville.

“We reject, in the strongest possible terms, any association of our flag with racism, hatred and bigotry,” flag maker Thin Blue Line USA said in a statement in 2017, per USA Today. “To use it in this way tarnishes what she and our nation believe in. The thin blue line flag represents the sacrifice this nation’s law enforcement officers make every day. We ask our nation to have faith with those who defend the thin blue. line.”

The flag has been controversial on other occasions, such as after the 2021 police killing of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, with police raising a thin blue line flag inside the shuttered police station as protesters gathered outside

It was eventually withdrawn after an order from Mayor Mike Elliott.