(Image source from: insider.com)

A protest of 100 people had to deal with 700 heavily armed white counter protestors in the small town of Ohio called Bethel and it got very ugly. People also went on to call it a sad day for Bethel.

There were rumours in the town of Bethel that protestors are going to bus down from the various parts of the country like Cincinnati which is 30kms away from Bethel to the town to protest Black Lives Matter. The black live matter protests began about a month ago when an officer from the Minneapolis police department brutally murdered an innocent man named George Floyd. The protests which began as a nationwide one are now spread all over the world from east to west. People are standing up to the racial inequality which has been happening in the world for centuries now.

Bethel is a small town in Ohio which has around 2,800 people out of which 700 were the counter protestors which included the motor cycle gangs and various thug groups. The town of bethel has just 3% of Black population and 97% of their population is white.

The counter protestors started being violent with the protestors and in one such incident a man in a bandanna who is identified as Johnnie Devvalut attacked the protestor from behind on his head and had hit him hard. When the protestors said the police who were just standing a few meters away the police did not take any action and stood numb.

One of the state senators took to twitter to share the video and incident that had happened and mentioned that the police should be held accountable and there should be justice. Village Administrator Travis Doston said that they are investigating the incident and the concerned office and the guilty will be charged for assault. He also went on to add that because the town just has 6 police officers, they were ready for the 100 protestors who were coming in but not the 700 extra counter protestors who are heavily armed with baseball bats and guns. The Bethel police department could not handle the protests so there were 9 additional officers who were deployed to Bethel to ensure peace within the city.

Accordingto recent news update, the administration of Bethel has also said that most of the counter protestors were not from their town but had come from outside to join the protest and most of the Bethe’s population was not involved in the whole incident. The people of Bethel joined the counter protests saying that they have a peaceful town and they want to keep it this way. Some of them even said that holding a card of Black Lives matter won’t change the beliefs that they have been learning since forever.

The people of both the protests clashed and the whole incident got pretty ugly. There were punches thrown and people were hurt. Some of them even said that this is a sad day for Bethel.

By Deepika Agarwal