From:
slider@atashram.com
Counter-protesters harassed group of peaceful demonstrators with rifles,
bats and racial slurs in mostly white town of Bethel
A small and peaceful demonstration in an Ohio town to support the Black
Lives Matter movement at the weekend was overwhelmed when hundreds of counter-protesters – some armed with rifles or baseball bats – harassed
the group.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/18/hundreds-armed-counter-protesters-confront-black-lives-matter-event-bethel-ohio
Alicia Gee, a 36-year-old substitute school teacher, expected about 50
people to attend a demonstration – the first protest she had ever
organized, she told the Cincinnati Enquirer – but almost twice as many
turned out.
The rally was intended to show solidarity with the minority black
community in Bethel, a mostly white town of about 2,800 people 30 miles
east of Cincinnati, she added.
But the small group of protesters were overwhelmed when roughly 700 counter-protesters turned up to show their opposition to the kind of
rallies and marches against racism and police brutality sweeping the
nation since the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in
Minneapolis in May.
Gee’s gathering demonstrated the renewed reach of the Black Lives Matter movement to small, majority white towns in the midwest that haven’t seen protests in years, spurred by recent, high-profile examples of killings of black people by white police officers or armed individuals acting as vigilantes.
Some small towns holding rallies now did not see such events after the
killing of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri,
in 2014.
Gee referenced violent tragedies such as the alleged murder of Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the shooting death of Breonna
Taylor by Louisville police, and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery by two armed white men in Georgia.
She said in a Facebook post that such brutality made it “perfectly clear
to me it’s time for my comfort to be put by the wayside, it is time for me
to use my body, my voice, and my privilege to show my town that it is not ‘fine,’ that it’s not just ‘city folks’ that have the right to peacefully
assemble, and that Black Lives Matter even if there are just a few in our town.”
But the demonstration was engulfed by a combination of armed gun-rights defenders, “back the blue” pro-police groups and about 250 people on motorcycles, which forced the group to move two blocks from its original location and led to tumult.
Videos from what turned into a two-hour clash, several of which circulated
on Twitter and Facebook, show the counter-protesters shouting racial slurs
and “all lives matter” and accosting demonstrators.
“They were grabbing me, and grabbing my mom, and they just seemed to have
no respect for the law,” Andrea Dennis, a Bethel resident whose Facebook
live from the demonstration shows a man ripping a fellow demonstrator’s
sign from her hands, told the Enquirer.
In another Facebook live video, Heather Bratton, also from Bethel, asserts “this is my hometown too!” to a white woman who repeatedly uses the N-word.
A few counter-demonstrators “started coming over and ripping signs out of
our hands, ripping the hats and masks off of our faces, ripping things out
of our pockets,” wrote demonstrator Abbi Remers on Facebook, along with a photo of a man’s bloody cheek, a bloodied mask, and video of men shouting “This ain’t Seattle!” and “This is a Republican state!”
Another widely circulated video shows a man wearing what appears to be a Confederate flag bandana sucker-punching a protester in the back of the
head in front of a police officer, who makes no arrest attempt. The video
drew condemnation from Ohio senator Sherrod Brown.
“These officers’ inaction is shameful,” Brown tweeted. “This is why we need the Justice in Policing Act – to hold police accountable,” he added, referring to legislation introduced by House Democrats earlier this month.
A #BlackLivesMatter protestor in #Bethel #Ohio got sucker punched
DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF A COP & nothing was done by the officer to protect
and serve the protestor.
In a virtual village council meeting on Tuesday, Bethel police chief Steve Teague said the officer present had not witnessed the incident because his attention was pulled to the side. All six of Bethel’s officers were
present on Sunday, Teague said, as well as some county deputies.
On Wednesday, Bethel police issued an arrest warrant for assault, citing
the video as evidence.
Because of tension and intimidation on Sunday, Gee said in a Facebook live video posted Monday that she did not plan to schedule another
demonstration. “I want us to heal, I want our community to heal, I want
peace and love to be spread,” she said. “And I’m worried that what we saw yesterday with more counter-protesters coming out – I’m worried that’s going to happen again.”
By Monday evening, Bethel mayor Jay Noble imposed a 9pm curfew, citing
“the threat of continued and escalating violence.”
Gee urged supporters to “not come to Bethel right now”, in a chilling echo of so-called “sundown towns” – majority-white towns where black people were evicted, barred from buying property, and banned after dark by threat
of violence earlier in the 20th century.
“It is not a time for any type of Black Lives Matter supporters to be in Bethel right now,” Gee said. “It’s not safe.”
“Our purpose was to show our community that it cares,” she said. “That it loves the people within our community, and right now, that cannot happen.”
### - this is how the right-wing fights back see? 'organised' lynch-mobs (without the actual lynchings, although there's been some of those too
just not here) designed to deter/crush lawful protest while the police
stand idly by doing nada about it, thus actually condoning it?
plus i guess we know NOW why sales of arms skyrocketed recently then LOL
:)))
fortunately, nearly every fucker on the planet these days is armed with
good quality cameras that can be instantly uploaded so none of this shit
any longer goes unnoticed or unrecorded, and that's a very good thing!
consequently all the SHIT is coming to the surface now AND being
documented! less & less of it being able to BE ignored/covered-up! these 2 recent killer-cops more than likely walking away from their victims
scot-free otherwise? (something which has obviously been going on all the time!)
the more they 'attack' like this the worse they look + reveal themselves
to be the bigoted brain-dead assholes they really all are! exactly what
they're being accused of!!!
lol they're literally digging their own graves but are too dumb to realise
it??
the world is changing...
gud :)
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)