Newtown: Police, Fire, Motorcycle Group, Among Do-Gooders Preventing Westboro Funeral Picket

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Members of police and fire departments from as far away as New York City traveled to Newtown and Woodbury, Connecticut to stop a promised picket of today’s Sandy Hook funerals by the Westboro Baptist Church. The “Church,” certified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, had promised to picket the funerals of the 20 children and six adults from the Sandy Hook Elementary School who died Friday at the hand of a lone gunman.

LOOK: Newtown: Firefighters Form Human Wall To Block Westboro Baptist Church

The images are stunning. Ordinary citizens, many not from Newtown, literally hand-in-hand and arm-in-arm with members of a motorcycle group called the Patriot Guard Riders, along with lines of  police and firefighters.

 

Westboro Baptist Church had posted to their picket schedule that they would be on hand for the funeral of Sandy hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung. Reports from Twitter, and Anonymous, the Internet hacktivist group, state the Westboro Baptist Church members were in town but apparently didn’t venture out of their hotel.  

“Motorcylists lined up on Wednesday to protest the possible protesters,” the Huffington Post reports:

“All these guys see us and think we’re bad. We’re not. It’s solidarity, is what it is,” New York native Jim Hannigan told Newtown Patch. “I just felt I had to be here.”

More than 100 riders from New York and Massachusetts, organized by the anti-Westboro group Patriot Guard Riders, were also in Connecticut on Wednesday to show their support, Patch reported. The lined the streets arm in arm.

On FDNY website, The Bravest, a posting asked firefighters and police officers to go to Newtown in plain clothes and block the protesters from the victims’ families and friends during the funeral processions.

The group Angel Action, which were ready to counter any Westboro Baptist Church protests at the funerals of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting victims in 2011, created a Facebook event to gather others to protect the Newtown funerals.

The hacktivist group Anonymous, which targeted Westboro after their threats to protest, revealed that members of Westboro were staying in Hartford, Conn., in a Motel 6 on Wednesday, according to the Examiner.

“I can’t put you through to those rooms,” a desk clerk at the motel told Examiner. “I wish those people weren’t staying here. I hate them and what they stand for.”

As part of operation #OccupyNewtown, Anonymous enlisted the help of followers to head to Connecticut to block Westboro members from protesting any of the victims’ funerals, according to Beta Beat.

UPDATE: Newtown Patch reports that those offering to block any Westboro Baptist Church protesters have left because the group is gone.

 

Our deep thanks to Newtown Patch for their excellent on-the-scene reporting.

 

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