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The Good guys Wore Black
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| Lea Crabb walks down the driveway of First Baptist
Church lined with supporters for the family of Bobby West Wednesday.
West was killed in action during the war in Iraq. |
The Daily Citizen
Bikers, religious radicals square off at soldier’s
funeral in Beebe
By Warren Watkins
BEEBE — The good guys wore black. The bad guys wore red, white and blue.
The fallen soldier wore tan camouflage.
Hundreds of protesters, who oppose gays, and protectors, who supported the
soldier’s family, stood on opposite sides of the highway at First Baptist
Church of Beebe during the funeral of a U.S. Army soldier killed in Iraq,
Spc. Bobby West, 23, of Beebe, killed May 30 by a car bomb.
“I’m just glad ya’ll have done a good job,” White County
Sheriff Pat Garrett told a biker who had come to support the family. “All
they’re wanting to do is provoke a problem.”
Det. Don Inns of the Beebe Police Department was one of 10 officers from
that department who stood on Hwy. 64 on the west edge of the city limits as
mourners arrived. Garrett said 18 of his deputies were there, and Arkansas
State Police Commander Mike Davidson said he had eight officers on site. A
group of ultra-conservative Christians from Kansas gathered on the north
side of the highway; the bikers lined the curb to the south, nearest the
church.
Inns said the protesters were not breaking the law by
waving their signs, singing and shouting. The group had called earlier and
informed the department of their plans, and Beebe Chief of Police Jess Odom
had set up the areas for each group in anticipation.
Hundreds of bikers representing motorcycle clubs showed their patriotism in
contrast to the protesters — the Martyrs, the Banditos, the Thunderheads,
the Booze Fighters, the Hardriders, the Gravediggers, the Ozark Riders and
the Christian Motorcycle Association — forming a Patriot Guard to shield
West’s family and friends.
“All the biker groups have come together,” John “Cougar” Brannen, 39, of the
Rolling Thunder motorcycle club, said. “We make a barricade where they can’t
see the family. We create a wall so they can’t see or hear this while
they’re burying their dead.”
While the protesters, about ten people from Westboro Baptist Church of
Topeka, Kan. traveling in one vehicle, sang, “God hates America,” to the
tune of “God Bless America,” cars, trucks and 18-wheelers continued to use
the busy highway. One SUV driver slowed down to yell her negative opinion at
the anti-war activists, but was decisively stopped and made to move ahead by
the police officers.
“Can’t you stop that guy from trampling on the flag?” one biker asked
Garrett. “Isn’t that illegal?”
When a biker tried to cross the road toward the protesters, he was stopped
by police and arrested for carrying a knife.
Wearing a T-shirt that read, “GodHatesFags.Com,” Jonathan Phelps said the
term fag was short for faggot, an old English word for wood to be burned.
Phelps described God’s judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and
brimstone, and said God hated America because gays were allowed in the
military.
“God has judged America for not taking a stand against homosexuals,” Phelps
said.
His nephew, Zach Phelps, 15, stood nearby with a sign of his own.
“I’m here to protest the soldier’s funeral because he was fighting with a
fag army for a fag nation,” Zach Phelps said. “They’re in there worshipping
his body.”
A confrontation seemed to be brewing across the five-lane road when a biker
suddenly stepped into the street, turned toward his fellow motorcycle
riders, and yelled, “Turn your back on them! Ignore them!”
The bikers turned their leather-covered backs on the protesters in unison,
facing the church where the funeral was about to begin.
“Most of the clubs out here are family-oriented,” said Brannen.
Asked if he was a law-abiding citizen, one biker said he was.
Navy veteran Micah Briley stood with the bikers, holding a large American
flag.
“This is the last big, retired naval flag that flew over Charleston Naval
Base in Charleston, N. C., before it was closed,” Briley said. “My brother
died in Mogadishu, in the incident described in ‘Blackhawk Down.’ He was
Chief Warrant Officer Donovan Briley.”
Briley was asked why he was a protector.
“To stand up to protect this family,” Briley said. “The’ve already suffered
enough, losing their loved one.”
Debby Smith of Bryant stood near the line of over a hundred motorcycles,
parked two-by-two through the church driveway, and held an American flag.
“I support the military one hundred percent,” Smith said. “I have two sons.
The oldest just spent a year in Iraq, and the youngest left Tuesday for
basic training to be a U.S. Army Ranger/Airborne.”
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