Pro-Trump Rally In Highland Park Dwarfed By Counterprotest

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — A demonstration in support of President Donald Trump Monday drew hundreds of counterprotesters to downtown Highland Park. An organizer of the pro-Trump roadside rally said it was planned independently by a pair of North Shore moms, while one of the people who encouraged counterdemonstrators to show up to confront the pro-Trump group pointed to its connections to a social media group formerly known as the Lake Bluff Militia.

A couple dozen supporters of the president gathered on Labor Day at the corner of St. Johns and Central avenues. They were met by a group of more than double their size. Highland Park police estimated the total crowd size as approximately 300 people. Police said no arrests or citations were issued in connection with the event.

Kristin Strom of Lake Forest said she had been told that many people who planned on attending the demonstration decided against it after driving by and seeing her group of Trump supporters surrounded by counterprotesters.

"Imagine being surrounded by a mob and having them scream at the top of their lungs for two hours," she said.

Strom, a Shields Township trustee, said she and Patrice McDermand of Lake Bluff organized their first pro-Trump rally together in Vernon Hills in mid-August.

At that event, Strom said, there were a lot of very young, very angry girls who flipped her off, but far fewer people who showed up to oppose the supporters of the president. The Highland Park rally was intended to be a similar event, she said.

"There has been so much anger toward Trump supporters on the North Shore, and we had had a successful event in Vernon Hills a couple weeks ago, and although there was some opposition, for the most part it was very supportive," she said. "What we experienced yesterday was the most vile aggression that I personally have ever experienced. The hate, the foul language, the physical abuse of senior citizens was inexcusable."

In addition to heated verbal confrontation, Strom said she had to physically help an elderly man away from the group after he was surrounded.

"They really only had the F-word to use. They were absolutely despicable. There's no other word to describe them. We were shocked at their disrespect toward the police," she said.

"The hate they were just screaming in our faces is truly like nothing I have ever seen before," Strom said. "Their aggression and their verbal abuse was inexcusable. To treat another citizen the way they treated us was shocking."

Strom said the organizers had discussed the event ahead of time with police, who said they would advise the pro-Trump demonstrators if the situation got too dangerous. They did not. Police did not seek to separate the two groups, which, at times, did not maintain 6 feet of physical distance.

"Was it an enjoyable experience? No. Absolutely not," said Strom, who plans to organize more local pro-Trump rallies in the coming months. "What would have been more productive was if they would have stayed on their side, we would've been on our side. That would have been great. They could have shown they outnumbered us, out-organized us, that's great. But what they didn't have to do was come and be so aggressively vicious. The most foul-mouthed women I've ever seen in my entire life."

Ashbey Beasley of Highland Park spearheaded the counterdemonstration. She said she would not have done so had it been merely a pro-Trump rally. Instead, she said she was motivated to show up to oppose the gathering because of its links to a social media group established earlier this year called the Lake Bluff Social Club, which was formerly known as the Lake Bluff Militia.

"We weren't there because Highland Park is anti-Trump. We weren't there because we're a liberal town and we're intolerant of other people's views. We were not there to try to silence people from their First Amendment rights and supporting the president. That's not why we were there," Beasley said. "Highland Park showed up in such a large group because a militia decided to come to our town."

Both Strom and McDermand appeared in the image that was used, until Monday, as the cover photo for the group formerly known as the Lake Bluff Militia, Beasley noted. The image, she said, was taken at a Blue Lives Matter demonstration the group held at the same time as a vigil in Lake Forest's Market Square organized by current and recent Lake Forest High School students in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In social media posts ahead of the Highland Park rally, Beasley and other counterprotesters warned "a militia group from Lake Forest/Lake Bluff" was behind the pro-Trump rally and pointed to pro-gun ownership posts in the group. But not everyone at the rally knew of any connection to the group, Beasley said.

"People in the group, unfortunately, did not know that the event was hosted by a militia or created by people in a militia. There was this elderly couple and they were like, 'What are you talking about, a militia?' And I was like, 'These two ladies in the front are part of a militia group, they organized this event,'" she said. "They were horrified. They were like, 'We wouldn't come to an event that was organized by a militia.'"

Strom said she left the Lake Bluff Militia group, which changed the name of its social media group in June, months ago and is no longer a member.

The group's lead organizer, Robert Metz, said there was no group called the Lake Bluff Militia. On behalf of the Lake Bluff Social Club — known until late June as the Lake Bluff Militia, according to Facebook — he said counterprotesters had targeted the group in an effort to spread fear in the community.

"The organizers of the counterprotest created a false narrative of fear designed to scare the local community by pulling a non-existent group into their concocted story. Lake Bluff Social Club was not the organizer and had no affiliation with the event despite what was communicated by counterprotest organizers," Metz said in an email. "I understand the rally was designed to support our sitting President of the United States which was spun by counterprotest organizers as a 'hate rally'. Quite an ironic intolerant position from a group preaching tolerance and inclusion. This is a classic example of the current sad state of affairs, intolerance and cancel culture prevalent in our American political process and local communities. "

Metz said he expected libel, slander and defamation lawsuits to be filed in response and that the truth would emerge in court.

"This was a concerted effort by someone with nefarious intent to smear individual and organizational reputations," he said.

Strom said she and McDermand sent information for the event to about a half-dozen local social media groups, and some shared it on their page. After she posted the details of the event on a local conservative women's group's Facebook page, Metz shared a screenshot of that post — with Strom's social media pseudonym "Karen White" blacked out — in the group formerly known as the Lake Bluff Militia. He encouraged people to attend the "victory rally now that the other side is crumbling." Metz's post was used as evidence that his group was organizing the event. But Strom said she and McDermand were the only organizers.

"This was just two housewives in the suburbs doing a pro-Trump rally, support the police in Highland Park. That was it," Strom said. "Bring your Trump sign, come to a corner and let's celebrate our great president."

At least one attendee at the event self-identified as a militia member, witnesses told Patch. No members of the group were seen brandishing any firearms.

Last week's fatal shootings of two people and wounding of another in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that led to homicide charges against 17-year-old Lake County resident Kyle Rittenhouse have prompted increased scrutiny on local self-described militia groups.

Rittenhouse, of Antioch, reportedly traveled to Kenosha following a call on social media from a group called the Kenosha Guard for armed people to defend people and property against arson and rioting following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Beasley said she was glad to see such large crowd come out into the streets of Highland Park on such short notice to oppose a group she believes to be linked to a militia.

"This was really Highland Park coming out to protest people from a militia who went through a lot of trouble to act like they weren't attached to a militia to hold a rally in our town," she said. "If it was just a Trump rally, hosted by a local conservative group. Would we all have shown up the way we did? I don't think so."