ARMED CITIZENS ARRIVE AT PROTEST IN SOMERVILLE AFTER THREATS MADE AGAINST BUSINESSES

  

Tensions were high between two separate groups at a protest in Somerville over the weekend, after police say a threat was made against a pair of local businesses.

According to Police Chief Craig Wise, he and the Burleson County Sheriff’s Office had to keep a small group of police brutality protesters from the area and an armed group of citizens separate from each other at a scheduled protest Saturday night, after the owners of Rockin’ MC Rustic Furniture and Mama’s Kitchen reported violent threats against their businesses.

Wise said the threats came after the furniture store owner made a comment on social media that he would later apologize for.  Threats were also raised against Mama’s Kitchen after rumors suggested the restaurant called in the group of armed individuals, which Wise said was untrue.

Update @ 3:30 p.m.: Wise said he believes neither of the feuding groups were from Somerville.  However, Ann Marie Ureste, one of the protestors Saturday night, said the unarmed group present Saturday consisted of many local residents, including family members of Chester Jackson, Jr., the Somerville man who ended up on life support at a hospital in Austin after a series of events during his time in Burleson County custody last year.  Ureste said the small group, called “Voices for the Cause”, has never tied itself to a larger movement such as Black Lives Matter, while others in the group said they did not make any threats toward any business in Somerville.

Several videos surfaced on social media of the armed group, one of them showing three men, armed with long guns, walking directly through the group of protestors.  According to Burleson County Chief Deputy John Pollock, there were approximately seven people in the armed group.  Pollock and Wise denied claims made on social media that the armed individuals had ties to a white supremacist group, but could not say if they had ties to any overarching group.

Ureste claimed that Somerville police did not intervene or check on the protestors when the armed group walked through them, adding it was only after the Sheriff’s Office provided assistance that police asked the armed group to move away from the protestors.

Both Wise and Pollock said the groups ultimately remained peaceful and cooperative with authorities, never violating any laws.  Pollock said while the group of people carrying firearms remained “appropriate” with the guns, he does believe the incident of the armed group walking through the protestors carried a “certain level of intimidation”.  Wise said the police department is “still piecing things together” in the investigation.