Last Updated on February 17, 2022
Small town Black Lives Matter supporters recently staged a protest in Bethel, Ohio, only to be greeted by a much larger group of counter protesters including members of local motorcycle clubs, who proceeded to challenge the Black Lives Matter protesters and largely disrupted the event.
On June 15, a small group of Black Lives Matter supporters was greeted by over 700 counter protesters in Bethel, Ohio, leaving police totally overwhelmed, and generating a series of viral videos. While National File previously reported on this event, Buzzfeed’s reporting focused on isolated reports of racism at the hands of bikers and, potentially, residents of Bethel.
According to Buzzfeed, one protester recalled, “They started pushing us, being aggressive, yelling at us. We couldn’t believe it. We were stunned.”
Watching footage of the day, you can see the energy grow darker and heavier. You can hear a man yell “you came to the wrong fucking town,” a woman scream “you’re supporting the goddamn n*****s,” another man threaten to “break your fucking jaw, bitch.” You can see rifles and handguns and a literal bag full of baseball bats. You can see a woman in a pink sweatshirt repeatedly calling a Black woman the n-word. You can see people grabbing sign after sign from the pro-BLM demonstrators and ripping them to shreds. You can see a biker come up behind Nick Reardon and punch him directly in the skull. And you can see the police officers watching the encounter do nothing.
“People were screaming at us to go back where we came from,” Anwen Darcy, who attended the demonstration with her mom and sister, recalled. “But I was looking around, and I saw Mrs. Dennis, who’d been a teacher for 30 years. I saw my mom, who’d been on the PTA for years and served as the drama director. I saw the woman who ran all the prom fundraisers and a city councilman. The people yelling at us weren’t from here, because if they were, they would’ve known we were home.”
National File previously reported on an incident from the protests showing a group of men counter protest during the event, in which one man reference the now-defunct CHAZ, which was then at its zenith in Seattle.
A supporter of Black Lives Matter posted the video to Twitter, and claimed there are “racial slurs” in the video. National File could not identify any slurs after carefully reviewing the video.
National File reported:
One heated exchange between the two sides was posted to Twitter by a Black Lives Matter account which captioned the video, “Ohio Trump supporters & counter protesters to the Black Life Matters movement threaten and scream to protesters ‘This is a Rublican State’ and a host of other racial slurs.”
While no distinguishable racial slurs or threats can be seen in the video, one man can be seen firmly telling a Black Lives Matter protester “Get this on your phone. This ain’t Seattle, this isn’t a Democratic state here, we don’t put up with your shit. All lives matter here.”
WATCH: #Bethel Ohio Trump supporters & counter protesters to the Black Life Matters movement threaten and scream to Protesters “This is a Rublican State” and a host of other racial slurs. pic.twitter.com/WDmgG3eHw0
— 🥷🏿 (@b0ywxnder) June 15, 2020
