TOPEKA — Hundreds of police supporters gathered Tuesday afternoon outside the capital’s city hall to protest demands by Black Lives Matter.
Standing in sweltering heat, they chanted “back the blue,” joined in prayer, sang “God Bless America,” and cheered speakers, including three Republican candidates for the Kansas Legislature, who urged them to brace for a long battle against activists who would restrict police from keeping them safe.
The demonstration preceded a special city council meeting in which dozens of community members signed up to speak in favor or opposition of proposed police reforms.
Some of the rally participants hocked T-shirts. Virtually all of them were white, and few wore masks as they packed into shady corners of the city block.
A contingent of Black Lives Matter supporters held court on the edge of the larger protest, engaging in spirited verbal clashes.
“Black lives matter!”
“Jesus matters!”
“Jesus was black, baby!”
“This is like a comedy show I didn’t even have a ticket for.”
THE RALLY was organized by retired Topeka police officer Ron Gish in response to various proposals inspired by the death of George Floyd earlier this year, and countless other Black men and women who have been killed by police nationwide. In Topeka, Black Lives Matter is asking the city council to overhaul qualified immunity for police officers, classify a chokehold as a crime, prohibit racial profiling, establish a registry of police misconduct to be maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice, and create a civilian review board to represent and empower the community.
“When we say Black Lives Matter, we’re talking about more than police brutality,” said Pjay Carter, an organizer for Black Lives Matter-Topeka. “We’re talking about incarceration, health care, housing, education, and economics — all the different components of a broader system that has created the reality we see today, where Black people are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of white people, where Black people are given harsher sentences for the same offenses, where Black people are more likely to be held on bail pretrial, and where Black people are dying not only at the hands of police, but because of an unequal health care system.
“Black lives should matter in all stages of life, and to honor that truth, we must radically transform the system from its roots.”
Speakers at the pro-police rally warned supporters of the dangers of pursing such reform.
“We have to be vigilant,” said Francis Slobodnik, a Topeka resident and district manager for the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, which bills itself as Catholic inspired and is known as an anti-LGBTQ group.
“Be vigilant,” Slobodnik told the crowd. “Because what the people who want to reduce the police, weaken the police, what they will do is they will try to wait us out. They will hope we fall asleep.”
Republican Jeff Coen, a former Topeka councilman who is now running against Democratic Rep. Jim Gartner, lamented how the council in one year had gone from talking about fixing potholes and water main lines to talk of police reform.
“You know, if one of our officers was struggling with a bad guy, and it was a chance to get a little jujitsu action to put the person to sleep, so they could put the handcuffs on him — that’s not asking for much,” Coen said.
Janlyn Nesbett Tucker, a Republican who is running for a Statehouse seat held by Democratic Rep. Annie Kuether, led the crowd in chanting the names of fallen Topeka police officers. It was her take on the “say his name” references to Floyd.
“When someone says, ‘Black lives matter,’ and we say, ‘All lives matter,’ it’s like saying, ‘My grandmother died,’ and, ‘Well, all grandmothers die.’ And you know, I want us to really think about that,” she said.
