Standing with signs reading “Support Your Local Police,” and “Cops Lives Matter,” several dozen officers, fire fighters, and IBEW union members applauded as police union leaders called the Black Lives Matter banner offensive. Harold Magilvray, president of the Massachusetts municipal police coalition, called on Somerville Police Chief David Fallon, who supports Mayor Joe Curtatone’s decision, to change his stance.
"We urge him to defend his officers and support his officers," Macgilvray said. "City Hall does not belong to Joe Curtatone. It’s not his house."
Michael McGrath, president of the Somerville police union, acknowledged that most of the officers present weren’t from Somerville, but said that his members want the flag taken down, calling it "exclusionary" for showing sympathy to only one group of people, and, he said, conveyed a hostile message in the wake of the tragic police deaths in Dallas and Baton Rogue.
McGrath has advocated for replacing the "Black LIves Matter" banner with one reading "All Lives Matter."
Both speakers were intensely critical of Somerville Mayor Curtatone. But both refrained from direct criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement here. McGrath said he'd be willing to meet with members of Black Lives Matter to discuss a compromise.
And Macgilvray, unprompted, acknowledged a Black Lives Matter Cambridge counter-protest, being held a few blocks away, offering a "thank you" to those holding the event.
"That’s what this country is about," MacGilvray said. "We have a first amendment right, to exercise our freedom of speech."
As the rally ended, members of the counter-demonstration showed up, holding an ad hoc rally where the prior rally had just taken place.
There were a few testy exchanges, though most seemed to involve individuals loosely or not at all associated with the formal police union members' event. Overall, the two groups swapped places peacefully and without incident.
