Artists put up a new mural of "LGBT gangsters" in San Francisco on Thursday only for it to be defaced on Saturday for a second time, Fusion reported.

The San Francisco Police Department is investigating the case, calling it a hate crime.

"The defacement and re-defacement of the current digital mural by Manuel Paul of Maricón Collective has only proven the credibility of its purpose," a community gallery said in a statement as well as on Twitter, posting a photo of the defaced mural.

"Galeria de la Raza believes in the importance of continued dialogue about LGBTQ visibility, awareness, and acceptance in the Mission District and within the greater Latin@ communities," the statement continued.

The mural was put up in San Francisco's historically Latino Mission District as part of an exhibit at the gallery. Its design included two men and two women embracing each other while the middle image was of a transgender man.

Local residents continue to deface the art work while some have threatened to physically harm the artist.

"This case is going to the special investigations division which handles all hate crime cases," said Officer Grace Gatpandan, a spokesperson for the SFPD.

Fusion reported last week that the mural was defaced for the first time following online threats

Murals from the past have expressed issues that people face in the historically Latino neighborhood such as police brutality, poor education and gentrification. But this time around, viewers are showing different reactions.

"We're used to getting both negative and positive feedback as part of our programming, but this time around we didn't anticipate this response," said Ani Rivera, director of the gallery.

"This is the first time we've had extremely homophobic responses and I think it's part of the gentrification that's happening in the community. Some people associate LGBT people with non-Latino communities," Rivera added.

There has been a lot of supporters for the mural. Rivera also vows to fix the mural as many times as the gallery needs to because it expresses voices that need to be heard.