Pictured, on left, a counter-demonstrator confronts a BLM demonstrator, pictured on right, during what was organized to be a peaceful event on June 14, 2020, in the village of Bethel.
Pictured is Black Lives Matter demonstrator Guadalupe Rodriguez, age 17, of Bethel, who had at least five of her demonstration signs stolen and ripped up by counter-demonstrators.
Pictured are Black Lives Matter demonstrators on June 14, 2020, in the village of Bethel.
Pictured are Black Lives Matter demonstrators on June 14, 2020, in the village of Bethel.
Pictured, on left, are Black Lives Matter demonstrators on June 14, 2020, in the village of Bethel, being confronted by counter-demonstrators, pictured on right.
Pictured are counter-demonstrators on June 14, 2020, in the village of Bethel, who pushed their way through a Black Lives Matter demonstrator line to steal and destroy BLM signs.
Pictured, on left, a Black Lives Matter demonstrator is confronted by a group of counter-demonstrators, pictured on right, on June 14 in the village of Bethel.

By Megan Alley
Sun Reporter

On June 14 in the village of Bethel, a Black Lives Matter demonstration erupted in violence when self-described “motorcycle gangs” comprised of counter-demonstrators overwhelmed police.

Counter-demonstrators carried assault rifles and brandished knives while swarming the peaceful protesters and creating a chaotic scene.

The Sun was there to witness most of the afternoon’s events unfold.

The Bethel Police Department had six officers – the entirety of the department – patrolling the demonstration.

Police Chief Steve Teague had also arranged for back-up units from the Clermont County Sheriff’s office, but many of the sheriff’s deputies were called away at the last minute to help deal with a “weapons fired” incident in Union Township.

Reflecting on the day’s events, Teague said, “It just overwhelmed us.”

“I am extremely sad that it turned out the way it did,” he added. “But at the same point, I’m extremely happy that there was no loss of life.”

Bethel native and resident Alicia Gee organized the BLM demonstration after reading about a recent event in Hazard, Kentucky.

“I thought to myself, if they can have a demonstration, standing for black lives, then my little town on the edge of Appalachia can do that,” she said. “There are people in my town who I know will support it.”

In the days leading up to the event, she worked with the village administration to secure appropriate permits, and with Teague to discuss security protocols.

A post that was circulated online announced “Bethel’s Solidarity with Black Lives Demonstration . . . [a] peaceful, socially-distanced demonstration to stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and honor Breonna [Taylor], George Floyd, and the many others who have lost their lives due to systemic oppression and racism. This will be a family-friendly event.”

News of the demonstration spread quickly, and to help quell rumors that also began to circulate, Gee asked village officials to post a statement on the official Bethel Facebook page, which they did.

“We wanted to let people know it was going to be a peaceful and family-friendly event,” she explained.

Nonetheless, a counter-demonstration was also being organized online, and on June 14, groups of self-identified “motorcycle gangs” began to pour into town.

At 3 p.m., with counter-demonstrators occupying the street where Gee’s event was planned to take place, she and other BLM demonstrators moved to a new location on Plane Street, between East and Charity Streets, near Community Christian Church.

What The Sun witnessed over the course of the next hour was a complete breakdown of law and order, and a frightening display of violence and anger by the counter-demonstrators.

More than one BLM demonstrator recounted having had their protest signs aggressively taken and destroyed by counter-demonstrators before they even reached the event.

In Ohio, theft is misdemeanor of the first degree when the value of property or services stolen is less than $1,000.

At the start of the afternoon, BLM demonstrators and the counter-demonstrators mostly stood on their respective sides of the street; it wasn’t long, however, before the counter-demonstrators began to push though the BLM demonstrators’ lines.

Realizing that they outnumbered both the BLM demonstrators and the patrolling officers, the counter-demonstrators began to overtly threaten attendees. A reporter from The Sun was warned to “leave town, or else.”

Verbal disagreements turned into heated arguments and then devolved into violence.

Counter-demonstrators proclaimed “all lives matter,” and accused the BLM demonstrators of reverse-racism. In a video posted online, a counter-demonstrator can be heard calling one of the BLM demonstrators a “n****r.”

One after another, the peaceful protester’s signs were stolen and destroyed. In at least once instance captured on video and posted online, a counter-demonstrator is seen snatching a sign, tearing it up, and throwing the bits of poster board into the air.

The Sun asked one counter-demonstrator who was carrying a pile of torn up BLM posters for his point of view, but he declined to provide a comment.

BLM demonstrator Guadalupe Rodriguez, age 17, of Bethel, agreed to speak with The Sun amid the growing chaos.

She said that she was compelled to join the demonstration because, as a person of color herself, she wanted to show her support of other people of color.

Rodriguez expressed her surprise at the counter-demonstrators. “I didn’t expect people, honestly, to get this aggressive,” she said. “I’ve had five signs torn up now of mine now, and I’ve been pushed.”

As she finished her thought, Rodriguez was cut short by a counter-demonstrator who threatened to “make it six.” Jason Aldean, age 42 of Morrow (not the country singer who faced criticism for wearing blackface in 2015), said that he grew up in Bethel and blamed media like The Sun for inciting the day’s chaos.

He was then interrupted by a group of counter-protesters who put one BLM demonstrator in a headlock and dragged him to the ground, along with the popping sounds of police deploying Tasers into the crowd. According to Chief Teague, no one was actually struck by any of the Tasers.

Some people ran from the scene, others ran to it.

Sheriff’s deputies who were stationed outside of the immediate area – a security tactic that Teague had earlier requested to avoid showing force against the demonstrators – then made their way to the scene.

Parts of both the demonstrations and the violence that ensued were broadcast live on Facebook and via video clips posted online afterwards.

The outbreak has since garnered national attention and outrage.

Village officials, including Mayor Jay Noble, released a statement about the event that evening that read, in part:

“By the official start time of the event, there were approximately 750 to 800 people in attendance. [There were] approximately 10 incidents, which were primarily minor scuffles. Those involved were removed from the scene and there are ongoing investigations concerning those incidents.”

Noble, who was elected as village mayor in November 2019, has worked hard to establish a brand for the village – “Bethel; Small Town, Big Heart” – and he downplayed the day’s events.

“From what I’ve seen on Facebook and reports that have been given to me, each incident didn’t seem to last more than 30-seconds each,” he said. “It wasn’t like an ongoing brawls for an hour and a half.”

Noble viewed most of the proceedings from a distance of several blocks.

Teague and his department have come under public fire for not effectively providing protection for the BLM demonstrators, and for letting the counter-protesters run rampant thought the demonstration.

“There was so much going on at the time,” he said. “We couldn’t be at every place at every time.”

In one widely circulated video, former Bethel Police Chief and current Sergeant Mark Planck is seen standing by as a counter-demonstrator punches a BLM demonstrator in the back of the head.

“We received quite a few complaints about [Planck] not responding to the person being struck in front of him, and we are actively investigating that,” Teague said.

Planck was still on duty at the time of The Sun’s interview.

As of June 14, no arrests had been made stemming from the demonstrations, but there are a lot of open investigations, Teague explained.

“We’re still collecting intel,” he said. “We’re trying to get all of that running, and right now we are still collecting suspects and victims, and writing reports and things like that.”

He added, “It was something that none of us have experience with here. You know, we’re a quite small town; we have one officer on duty at a time for our approximate 2,700 residents, and we normally don’t have these issues here, and we were just overwhelmed.”

Anyone wanting to file a complaint, be it of theft or otherwise, is asked to contact the Bethel Police Department at 513-734-2256. Video evidence of the incident is also welcome.

Teague and his department are working with the Clermont County Prosecutor’s Office to possibly file charges against perpetrators.

Noble tried to sum up the village’s approach to handling the violence by saying, “Sometimes you have to let a misdemeanor go to keep a felony from happening . . . . All around it wasn’t a great day … but it could’ve been a lot worse.”

“We were trying to protect these peoples’ lives, more than dealing with someone who got punched,” said Teague. “We had to change our tactics because it was turning south on us, and it was going bad quick, and were overwhelmed, and the only thing that kept people from getting hurt more was us physically standing in between the two groups, and neither one of the groups wanting to assault the police officers.”

Speaking to The Sun a day after the demonstrations, Gee was still processing.

“I’m overwhelmed, in all of the facets that overwhelmed can be,” she said. “Overwhelmed with gratitude for the people who showed up with us, overwhelmed with gratitude for the people who weren’t able to show up but their support, but also just overwhelmed by what I saw yesterday, what I experienced yesterday, what my town is experiencing right now.”

Some on social media have made claims that Gee, as the organizer of the BLM demonstrations, is responsible for the violence brought on by the counter-demonstrators.

“That accusation is something that I kind of expected,” she said. “To that point, I have always, from the very beginning, organized our event as a peaceful demonstration in a small town.”

She added, “I don’t think it was myself and my co-organizers who brought this on to the community, it was a person choosing to spread words of un-peace, who accused us of being outsiders and busing people in to the community; the true outsiders were the ones who were there that were not peaceful.”

Looking ahead, Gee plans to continue to spread her message of inclusivity.

“This isn’t a one and done kind of thing. I’ve lived in Bethel my whole life, my family’s lived in Bethel; generations … and I never felt like I could fully share my views, my peaceful views, my accepting views,” she said. “I knew there were other people like me in Bethel, so moving forward, we know who we are now . . . . I don’t want this to be a division, and to break our village a part, I want us to take this and move forward and be stronger together.”

Gee said that she draws strength from her village’s abolitionist roots.

“We have stops here on the Underground Railroad, and I just felt like that part of our history has been forgotten – not out in the open – and it’s time that those roots are connected with again.”

On June 15, rumors began to spread that a second day of confrontations was imminent.

Village Administrator Travis Dotson told The Sun in an email that, “We received an anonymous tip early this morning that buses were on their way from Columbus. Out of an abundance of precaution, we notified the local businesses of the possibility. . . . We have yet to see any buses arrive. It is my understanding that we have a lot of motorcycles around town again though.”

According to Dotson, both BLM demonstrators and counter-protesters did show up on Monday, and some arrests were made; the Bethel Police Department was assisted by the Ohio State Patrol, the Clermont County Sheriff’s Department and surrounding jurisdictions.

Later that evening, Noble issued a curfew order, which went into effect on June 15 at 9 p.m., and ended on June 16 at 6 a.m.