Turlock ‘Back the Badge’ rally scheduled to show support for police, law enforcement
A rally to show support for law enforcement is scheduled in Turlock on Saturday morning in the wake of local protests against police brutality.
Jacob Shockley, the organizer of the Back the Badge event, said he hopes the rally at the intersection of Geer Road and Monte Vista Avenue uplifts officers who honor oaths to protect people.
“I think they just need to see that there are people out there who have their backs,” Shockley said. “Because they hear it, they just don’t see it. So if they see people gathering, see people holding up signs that say ‘we support you, we back the badge,’ then that will kind of boost their morale.”
Planning for the rally began more than two weeks ago, Shockley said, in an effort to draw a large turnout. About 150 people have told Shockley they plan to attend the event from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Saturday, while about 450 Facebook users indicated they are going on the event page.
By participating, Lincoln resident Chrisie Knie said she wants good police officers to know that community members support efforts to hold their peers accountable.
“I hope that they feel like ‘We have the community, we can open that line of communication and we can have the community back us up when we stand up against other officers that should not be handling people of all races in a negative way or in any way that is in violation of their rights,’” Knie said.
Knie, who has friends in the Turlock area and family in law enforcement, plans to make the two-hour drive Saturday because she thinks it’s important to support officers across the nation. She added that many law enforcement officers go beyond their job duties to help their communities.
“I feel like there’s this kind of stigma on officers, and there’s a lot people that are not understanding the job that they do and the stress they have,” Knie said. “But that also doesn’t give them a free pass to treat people in a horrible manner or break laws and be aggressive to anybody of any nationality.”
Shockley, an Atwater resident, said he selected Turlock as the site of the rally because he knows a lot of law enforcement supporters in the city. Pro-police rallies have also been held in cities such as Fort Worth, Texas, and Carson City, Nevada, following calls for police reform and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The Turlock Police Department will provide security for the event taking place at the perimeter of the Stanislaus State campus, said university spokesperson Rosalee Rush, and university police will provide assistance as requested.
In response to the Back the Badge rally, Turlock Black Lives Matter and Las Dalias, an organization empowering Black and brown communities, are organizing a Unity Rally. The rally will run from 8:45 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at Monte Vista Crossings.
“We didn’t want to call this a counter protest ... because it’s quite clear there will be some people there in the ‘All Lives Matter’ group,” Turlock BLM co-founder Jaimee Ellison said in a text to The Bee. “We want to highlight the unity in our community and show that there’s so many different types of people from all around the world.”
The Back the Badge rally is scheduled to take place from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Saturday at Geer Road and Monte Vista Avenue. Attendees are encouraged to bring water, Shockley said.
This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 1:58 PM.
