Tarrytown Back the Blue Convoy Rally Goes Off Peacefully

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Motorcyclists depart Tarrytown at the close of the pro-police rally

September 12, 2020

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By Steve Gosset

They came to Tarrytown in American flag-draped trucks, motorcycles, military-style vehicles—even on horseback—to show support for police they see as denigrated and dismissed in the current surge in calls for racial justice.

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Bob Sanders, a New York state trooper for 33 years, attended the rally, where he reflected on how, after the Sept. 11 attacks, New Yorkers came together and did not hesitate to show their appreciation for first responders. It’s a different world today, he lamented.

His son, he said, had taken the exam to become a state trooper but eventually decided to pursue another career. “And he said to me, ‘Dad, I’m so glad I didn’t become a state trooper.’ And those words broke my heart.”

Speaking at a “Back the Blue” rally this afternoon near Tarrytown’s waterfront, Sanders said the spate of protests against the police helped convince him to retire sooner than he expected. “They hate you because you’re a first responder. They hate you because you’re a cop.”

The rally, which attracted some 200 who formed a motorized convoy through the village, was organized by John Stiloski, owner of Stiloski Automotive in Tarrytown, and James O’Sullivan, who runs O’Sullivan Tree Care in Rockland County. It was their response to concerns that law enforcement is being unfairly vilified in the wake of the unrest that erupted after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

BLM supporters, their backs to the parade, cluster in front of Pik Nik BBQ

Despite fears among many in the village that a confrontation between the pro-police group and Black Lives Matter supporters might get ugly, the midday event went off peacefully. Tarrytown had released a statement earlier in the week that while neither the village government nor police administration endorsed the rally, it was deemed a lawful exercise in free speech.

While the mood was often jovial, conservative sentiments were on full display. including many banners and signs supporting President Trump. Though there was little mention of Trump by the speakers, there was plenty of venom directed at New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Democrats who control state government.

Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who’s running for state Senate in a district that includes Sleepy Hollow, spoke at the rally, echoing Trump’s warning that the suburbs would be destroyed if Democrat Joe Biden was elected president. “These anarchists, these radicals are in Westchester,” warned Astorino, who was trounced in his bid to unseat Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2014. “And they hate what we stand for.”

A truck belonging to John Stiloski, who co-sponsored the rally

Bill Weber, a Republican running for an open State Senate seat that is mostly in Rockland but includes a portion of Ossining, said that in all the social unrest in recent months, state lawmakers have turned against law enforcement. “We need safe streets in our areas. We don’t want what’s going on in New York City to bleed into the suburbs.”

A sizeable number of the rally participants came from Rockland, including a crew on a fire truck from West Nyack. They heard from Rockland County Executive Ed Day, a former police officer who appeared by video, that the “thin blue line that separates good from evil is strained to the breaking point.”

Day, who has tangled with Cuomo over the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, said it was “sickening, absolutely maddening to see some officials smile, pat you on the back and go off to a far-off land such as Washington, D.C. and Albany, where they compromise your well-being and livelihood, your family, your futures and, yes, your very lives.”

That sentiment even crept into the invocation from Rev. David Lothrop, the longtime chaplain of the Clarkstown Police Department in Rockland County. “Let us send a strong message to America today and to all the politicians: we need our police,” he prayed, “and if they don’t hear us, let us defund the politicians and re-fund those who serve in law enforcement.”

The village had sent a notice to residents and business owners that it would communicate to “event organizers and attendees that they are expected to comply with … requirements to wear masks.” Police Chief John Barbalet said his department handed out 50 masks at the rally, though few could be seen wearing them. “We encourage social distancing,” he said.

Tarrytown Police were a low-key but ubiquitous presence throughout the event, which lasted less than two hours on a picture-perfect September afternoon. For the most part, pedestrians strolled along Main Street and filled the outdoor seating in restaurants, seemingly oblivious to the political drama. Only a small gathering of some 30 Black Lives Matter (BLM) supporters clustered in front of Pik Nik BBQ restaurant at the corner of Main and Washington, holding up signs when the convoy passed on its way out of town. One activist said the consensus among BLM supporters was to “ignore” the rallyers and avoid confrontation.

Indeed, there was never any sense of danger, unlike the dueling demonstrations at Patriots Park last June, when metal fencing separated a Stiloski-organized “Back the Blue” rally from a far larger and noisier BLM counter-protest on the other end of the park.

–with additional reporting by Barrett Seaman

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