Report by Paula Antolini, July 31, 2020, 11:20AM EDT
entrance to the Bethel Public Schools campus, a rock a favorite rock that graduates use to paint the year of their graduation, in celebration.
(Photo ©2020 BETHEL ADVOCATE / Paula Antolini)
Bethel is either being invaded by outside groups, or people that live here, possibly students, are causing havoc. Houston we have a problem!
The Town of Bethel and Bethel Public Schools officials have their hands full these days, with more than just handling town or school matters regarding the quarantine, social distancing and distance learning, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is now some unknown faction causing trouble in online forums and locally, and officials can’t seem to find out who it is.
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One visual sign of one of the continuing protests, noticed recently, is the “BLM” [Black Lives Matter] graffiti that suddenly appeared on the Bethel Public Schools campus, near the Judd Road entrance, painted on a favorite rock that graduates use to paint the year of their graduation, in celebration. Now somehow, in a very drippy black paint, the letters “BLM”are on the left side of the rock beside next year’s graduation date on the right side, already added. View photo below, shot yesterday:
School officials also had problems this past June when racist comments flooded the live 2020 Bethel High School Graduation BETV video, that had to be immediately taken down.
School officials and police have yet to discover who did that either.
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In a separate incident, members of a local Bethel Facebook chat group formerly named “Bethel CT Residents” forum, with 1,800+ members, found themselves suddenly in a group that appears to have been hacked or taken over by unknown individuals. It now says an “administrator” changed the name to “The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” with a photo at the top of the “OCCUPY GREENWOOD, Black Lives Matter” June 7, 2020, protest, at the top as the cover photo, and now it suddenly has very strange posts, VIEW Facebook page HERE if you are a member.
Many members are leaving because posts had gotten so disturbing, and it now appears to be a purposeful attempt to destroy the group, or a very bad joke. The premise is HERE.
Some new (mystery?) members are defending the group in comments on other online forums discussing this topic, appear to be part of the plot.
No one has been held accountable yet.
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Regarding another issue, an Instagram page was recently discovered, named, “racistsofbethel” and is using the Town of Bethel seal, in an attempt to make it seem as if it is connected to, or condoned by, the Town of Bethel officials. The group describes itself as, “exposing the racists of Bethel CT because someone has to we also expose homophobes & sexist [heart] dm submissions.” Shown below is the page before it went “private.” Underneath the description were racist posts and videos, some were older posts, being exposed, that had been previously posted online elsewhere.
Here is a copy of the top of the Instagram page before it went private:
The black “info” link (lower left black dot with text above) leads here:
And then here:
Here is how the Instagram page looks now in “private” mode:
Another link on the page, under the description, shown above as, “blacklivesmatters.carrd.co” leads to this page HERE which includes a list of “Ways You Can Help. When You’re Done: Educate Yourself. This Doesn’t Go Away Once The Topic Isn’t, ‘Trending.’ “ which has 17 more links to chose from including: Maps of Protests Locations; Petitions to Sign, including, “Condemn crowd control tactics as crimes against humanity” and numerous other links on each link listed,such as “Missing People Thread,” “BLM Canada,” “BLM Australia,” “BLM UK,” “Junk Terror Bill,” “Stand with Hong Kong,” “Free Palestine,” and “Yemen Crisis.” See for yourself HERE.
Basically this appears to also be individuals supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and operating in a private mode.
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We contacted Dr. Christine Carver, Superintendent of Bethel Public Schools, and this is what she had to say regarding the Instagram account: “We are aware. We have been in contact with the police to investigate, as have parents. We do not know who originated the group, or if it was a current student. If anyone has information about who might have started the account, they should contact Mr. Troetti. It is very difficult if not impossible to get any post taken down from Instagram. We have tried in the past.”
We also notified Bethel First Selectman Matthew Knickerbocker about the Facebook group and “racist” Instagram page that was using the town seal, and he responded, “None of these social media pages belong to the Town of Bethel, nor does the town government have any means of policing them. One is using the Bethel town seal without permission, but again, we have no means to prevent this from happening.“
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There was also a previous graffiti incident in Bethel, leading up to the June 4, 2020, vigil named, “Candlelight Vigil for Justice,” for George Floyd, an African American man died while in police custody when a police office kneeled on his neck. The protest was held outdoors on the corner of the Bethel Public Library, instead of on the Bethel municipal center lawn as originally planned, despite the First Selectman cancelling the vigil the day before, saying it was “not safe” to gather in high numbers due to the COVID-19 quarantine.
At some point, graffiti was painted on the brick wall on the side of the CJH Municipal center, and also inside the town gazebo, some with the letters, “BLM” representing Black Lives matters. The planned, then cancelled, vigil was an event First Knickerbocker and CT State Representative Raghib Allie-Brennan were originally hosting and promoting up until the day before. Allie-Brennan issued a public statement that he did not agree with the cancellation decision of Knickerbocker.
Despite the ban, Knickerbocker and Allie-Brennan attended the event anyway, and attended a subsequent event a few days later too, on June 7, 2020, named “OCCUPY GREENWOOD, Black Lives Matter,” which marched down Greenwood Avenue without a permit to do so, to the Bethel CJH Municipal Center lawn, which had 400 people in attendance, not observing social distancing. This is also after Knickerbocker denied the citizen vote on the budget because it was unsafe to vote due to COVID-19. Allie-Brennan was one of the featured speakers at the June 7th event and lead the protest down Greenwood Avenue using a megaphone to shout slogans to the crowd, such as topics relating to defunding the police.
Allie-Brennan, wearing a black t-shirt reading, “I can’t breathe,” representing George Floyd’s last words before he died, used a megaphone to loudly shout phrases to the protestors as they marched, some were, “Hands Up” which the crowd responded in unison with, “Don’t Shoot” and also, “No Justice” with response, “No Peace” and also, “No Racist” with response, “Police,” and also, “Say his name,” with response, “George Floyd.”
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UPDATE Aug.1, 2020: Instagram “racist” website now appears as “account inactive.”
