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Just got back from the Worcester Blue Lives Matter rally. Making a thread for how it went.
The crowd were mostly off duty cops along with some retried officers and their families. A number of them were adorned in Trump hats or shirts, many of the off duty officers were part of the riot squad during the June 1st protests.
Early on during the rally a few people did get into an argument with an immigrant driver who either refused to honk in support of the police or gave them the middle finger while telling the driver to go back where he came from but besides that there weren't many issues.
I did also overhear a number of conversations about covid from people who proudly bragged about refusing to wear masks where they talked about the virus being a hoax or claimed it was being intentionally spread by Asians across America.
One of the speakers then talks about videos of police brutality like the one of George Floyd’s death comparing them to if someone recorded a dentist pulling a tooth to make to make the dentist look bad and stating anyone can edit a video to make it seem horrific.
The noise in the background is from emergency vehicles which circled the square at some points with their sirens on in support of the rally. During the woman's speech she also claimed that the Worcester PD built this city and urged that the police need to take it back.
At one point a man in a black lives matter t-shirt showed up only to be circled by off duty cops. Apparently the man is also a cop from a neighboring town who supports both Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. The off duty cops spend the next 45 minutes trying to debate him.
From what little of their debate I caught, some of the rally goers apparently believe that Black Lives Matter stole their name from Blue Lives Matter in order to make the public forget about the dangers of being a cop.
While walking around, I noticed some of the cars from rally goers that had bumper stickers indicating the driver was active law enforcement also had decals or bumper stickers in support of militia groups like the three precenters.
Local blogger Turtleboy then shows up only to be greeted by a number of officers who ask to shake his hand.
At this point I noticed some rally goers confronting the small group of teens who were counter protesting the rally. After interviewing the teens I was told the men made threatening and racist statements regarding them being gang raped
A number of the rally goers then went up to or stood along side the protesters trying to distract from their message or argue with them, including one woman who had a sign promoting the conspiracy theory Q-Anon.
At this point the rally ended, not much else occurred afterwards. End of thread.
