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Students who were prepared to hear hate speech Monday heard only silence.
Westboro Baptist Church did not come to Cassell Coliseum to picket at the funeral of fallen Virginia Tech Police Officer Deriek Crouse.
“It was all over Facebook, and they had the flyer from Westboro Baptist Church, and so it seemed that they were going to come here, but we’re not seeing them now,” said Mitch Sandoe, a freshman engineering major at about 2:00 p.m.
According to Fred Phelps Jr., son of the WBC’s pastor, Fred Phelps Sr., the picketers were going to be protesting at Cassell Coliseum from 1:15 p.m. to 2 p.m. Crouse’s funeral began at 2 p.m.
After WBC did not show, many students went inside the Coliseum at 2 p.m. to attend the funeral.
Despite a lack of information about the exact location of the WBC protest, approximately 100 people showed up in front of the Coliseum wearing Hokie colors and holding signs.
“They have the right to protest we have the right to counter-protest,” said Michael Marchio, a freshman engineering major. “But the fact that they go out of their way to come here and just antagonize us, that makes us want to vocalize that we disapprove of their presence on our campus.”
While some students chose to ignore the WBC protestors, Marchio said he wanted to come out to show his support for the Crouse family.
“If we ignore them, they’ve already got their cameras and they’re going to get publicity anyway,” Marchio said. “We’ll just try to be louder than them with our ‘Let’s go Hokies.’ We’ve got to steal the spotlight.”
William Happ, a junior business information technology major, agreed.
“To me I think the best way to honor that is just to show Hokie respect,” Happ said. “We wanted to come together as a community like we always do, as you can see we’re doing right now.”
Happ held a sign that read “We can’t hear you,” and was taped to a vuvuzela.
Tech students were not the only ones who came out to show their support. A group of Radford University students was also present, holding signs and an American flag.
“We just decided that we had to come and stop them from being seen because it’s totally disrespectful to the fallen officer,” said Eric Millner, a criminal justice major from Radford. “My dad’s a veteran, and I want to be a police officer--actually that’s what I’m studying--so it meant a lot to me.”
Josh Clark, a senior ocean engineering major, brought a box of donuts to gather donations to give to the charity Hokies for Crouse.
He held a sign that read “Don’t Feed the Trolls. Instead, have a free donut. Any donations will go towards the Hokies for Crouse fund.”
A version of this article appeared in the Dec 13 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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BEST option is to IGNORE these bozos. They only want attention and any organized opposition will be in their favor.
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BEST response is NONE. They only want attention to themselves and any organized opposition will give them what they want. IGNORING them is the BEST option.
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So I'm wondering about the WBC folks... do they have little encampments nationwide that they send out to do these protests? If not, do they really drive 12+ hours all the way from Kansas/pay for airfare to places like VA to setup a protest for 45 minutes, then turn around and leave?
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It's a racket. It's a single family and they make money by making people so angry that somebody attacks them or their vehicles, then they sue for damages. Then they use that money for traveling to more places and repeat the process. They also drain money from the locations they visit by requiring police protection. The locals pay for that protection, the WBC does not.
The first commenter had it right, the media has to learn to shun these people, they thrive on the attention.
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they have to fly/drive from kansas because there's not that many of them..maybe like 30 or so i'm not sure. but WBC is just Phelps and his extended family..
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Quick research would show you that the WBC's church roll call is around 110, most of which are either the last name Phelps or Roper. Almost all of the adults are lawyers.
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did they come and just protest elsewhere in blacksburg?
even though their flyer said they were coming to cassell, they wouldn't have been to... you have to be protested by a student organization to protest on campus. so maybe they realized that and either protested elsewhere or just decided not to come altogether??
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You aren't very familiar with these people, are you? Do you think a few college kids would stop them when they have bikers following them from town to town while they intrude primarily on the funerals of fallen soldiers (which are highly attended by other soldiers)?
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You are not very familiar with these people if you don't think they follow the absolute letter of the law. there are 12 lawyers in that bunch and two of them have argued their case in front of the supreme court. it is true that they are intimidated by no one, but they do not break laws during their protests. they kicked out a long term member for getting violent. also the reports of their numbers being over 100 are exaggerated. they are currently around 40 people has more than 20 members have left in the last 6 years.
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Where in Christianity is hate-mongering an involved practice? What are Fred Phelps and the WBC afraid of anyhow? Rainbows? Unicorns? A flaming pink queer apocalypse? I attempted to address this with a portrait of the good reverend on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/03/fred-phelps-and-westboro-baptist-church.html Drop in and let me know what you think!
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