Rockville Centre residents want mayor to stop Proud Boys after marches

This is a known hate group. I happen to be Jewish, and I'm pretty sure that they hate me and all people who look like me."”

Lisa Burch, Rockville Centre resident

After two visits from the alt-right, “western chauvinist” group the Proud Boys, Rockville Centre residents vented frustrations over the response from the village at Monday’s board of trustees meeting.

They gathered outside Village Hall to voice their complaints about the ease with which the group paraded through the village in November and again last month. Lisa Burch, 21, spoke in front of the building.

“This is a known hate group,” Burch said. “I happen to be Jewish, and I’m pretty sure that they hate me and all people who look like me. I want to feel safe going shopping in my village, and if they’re going to show up at any time unannounced and no one is going to make them leave, I’m not going to feel that safe.”

The Proud Boys were among those at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, where there were chants of “white power” and “Jews will not replace us.” On the same day that residents came to Village Hall, five members of the Proud Boys were charged with seditious conspiracy for their roles in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

According to village code, parades and other processions must have a license granted by the chief of the village Police Department at least a week before the event. When the Proud Boys marched across Sunrise Highway a few weeks ago, police were there to monitor any signs of disorder.

“Is this the protocol for marching groups that violate village code?” resident Christine Koehler asked the trustees. “Will the response be the same when the group inevitably returns? Why would they not return when there is no recourse and they are provided seemingly an escort through the village? Allowing individuals or groups to blatantly break the law in our village sets a bad and potentially dangerous precedent.”

Mayor Francis Murray said in a statement after last month’s march that he has been working with several state agencies, the Nassau County Police Department, village police and the village attorney on what to do about these unpermitted events. Murray also said that the village would not be “provoked into actions which give unsavory groups the notoriety and public attention which they crave.”

Before the public comment period at the end of Monday’s meeting, Trustee Katie Conlon condemned the Proud Boys, but also expressed her support for the Police Department’s handling of the situation, and the First Amendment right to assemble.

“Because of the rights afforded to all of us by the First Amendment, but for limited exceptions, we cannot pick and choose what we believe is acceptable for people to do and say.” Conlon said. “As a board, we are also not here to micromanage our law enforcement.”

Given their chance to speak, many residents voice their displeasure with the lack of proactive moves on the part of the village to make it more difficult for the Proud Boys to march for the second time on May 21.

“It’s apparent that the Proud Boys have been made to feel safe and accepted, and Rockville Centre is home to the Proud Boys,” said Rena Riback, a co-administrator of the RVC-based Anti-Racism Project, which seeks to educate participants about institutional racism, and received national attention in 2020 when it was featured in an Obama Foundation newsletter. Riback added that she has lived in the village for 36 years. “Is that what we as a community want?” she said. “If it isn’t, then this board and the attorney for the village and the police commissioner need to take a strong and aggressive stand against the Proud Boys and the principles they represent.”

After the group’s first march, Riback and Anti-Racism Project Co-administrator Judy Rattner held a counterprotest in late November at Central Synagogue-Beth Emeth. “People are feeling unsafe and intimidated in their own community,” Rattner told the board on Monday. “If allowed to take root, this group will cause additional harm to this village and its reputation. Stand up, follow village code and emphatically denounce hate.”

After several attendees spoke, Murray expressed his feelings about the Proud Boys, which were labeled a terrorist entity in Canada and a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. “I definitely denounce this group who came to our village,” the mayor said. “I said it six months ago. I have not changed my opinion on this hateful, horrific, disgusting group of people. They have no home here in Rockville Centre. They’re disgusting.”