Hundreds gathered on both sides of the rotary near Holy Name parish Wednesday, one crowd dressed in black and holding “Black Lives Matter” signs, the other crowded near the West Roxbury police station, waving American flags with a thin blue line symbolizing support for the police.
At a break in the middle of both crowds, a protester from the pro-police side, Dennis MacDougall, argued with a counter-protester, Ernst Jean-Jacques.
“You are here to support something, and that’s good for you, I’m happy for you,” MacDougall said, attempting to find a middle ground. “You should be here to support what you believe in, just as everyone should.”
Jean-Jacques gave him a skeptical look.
“Let’s be real man, that’s not the case right here,” he said. “You know this.”
The “appreciation rally” for law enforcement and first responders was organized by a group of neighborhood residents and members of a local Republican ward committee.
The rally was met with an equally enthusiastic counter-protest organized by Dorchester resident Yaritza Dudley.
“This rally is not surprising to see, but it’s obvious why it came in response to Black Lives Matter,” Dudley said. “I had never, up until this time, seen any Stand for Blue rallies. We all know that Stand for Blue, Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter are all responses to Black Lives Matter, which is not to say that all lives don’t matter, but right now we’re focusing on the black ones.”
In the middle of the rotary, a mix of protesters from both sides found themselves in verbal altercations. At one point, a passing driver slowed down to shout his support of Black Lives Matter, and a protester holding a Blue Lives Matter sign spat on the car's window, before being escorted back towards the police station by several officers.
All the while, figures from either crowd would pass through: a woman dressed head-to-toe in American flag clothing, a man in an inflated pig suit, a protester wearing a pig nose and blasting "F*** tha Police" by hip-hop group N.W.A. on repeat from a giant speaker, and a young black boy riding around the rotary in the bed of a pickup truck holding a sign that read “we love our BPD.”
That boy’s mother, Hyde Park resident Lindsey Walsh, said she feels conflicted about teaching her son about what’s going on the world, as a white woman who has plenty of friends serving in the police force.
“I'm actually with both sides, I see their point, and then I see, you know, the other side,” she said.
Walsh said she’s talked to her son about how to act with police officers.
“I dated a cop and he said, if you get pulled over, put your hands on the steering wheel and stay calm.”
Walsh conceded that her status as a white woman might affect the way police treat her.
“I definitely feel like I'm treated better than how black people would be treated,” she said, “but I’m out here to show the good cops that there are still people who like them.”
Protester Dennis MacDougall echoed the same sentiment of supporting both police and the movement against police brutality, which has recently centered around an effort to defund and demilitarize the police.
“Just because we support the police doesn't mean we're against Black Lives Matter,” MacDougall said. “I support both groups. The same way that the black community asks us not to label them all as thugs and murderers, but they’re doing the exact same thing to the police. The police are not all thugs and murderers.”
Supporting “both sides” is not possible, organizer Yaritza Dudley argues.
“You can't say you stand for Black Lives Matter and support the institution that continues to murder us,” she said.
Lawmakers on Beacon Hill are anticipating a bill from Governor Charlie Baker this week that would push forward a system to certify police officers in Massachusetts as part of a widespread initiative to regulate police to be more accountable and transparent.
When asked by a reporter if this would be a “step in the right direction,” Dudley pushed back.
“What is a step in the right direction is defunding the police,” she said. “We've seen reforms happen since the beginning of the foundation of the policing institution, an institution derived from slave catching. You cannot reform a broken system. You can't build on a foundation what's already rotten.”
The third consecutive Vigil For Black lives will be held at the rotary on Monday by a neighborhood activist group. In a Facebook post addressing the law enforcement appreciation rally, the group’s leaders wrote, “we'll be back at Holy Name on Monday. Let's make it big.”
