TYLER, Texas — U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert denied Monday having any connection to a counter-protest at the Square in downtown Tyler Sunday, or the fight that ensued and injured his opponent’s campaign manager.
Instead, he blamed his opponent for having the protest in the first place.
“It’s just shocking to me that anybody running for office in East Texas would want to bring Portland violence to East Texas,” congressman Gohmert said.“That’s not who we are, that’s not what we do.”
His challenger in the November election, Democrat Hank Gilbert, organized a protest against the involvement of federal law enforcement in Portland, Oregon. U.S. Marshals and other law enforcement officers have guarded the city’s federal courthouse and clashed with protesters on a nightly basis.
“And we have seen: those are Marxists,” Gohmert claimed. “There, Seattle, different places around the country. These are Marxist tactics. These were used in 1917 in what became the Soviet Union, Mao used them. You go foment violence, you incite violence, and then you blame it on the people that did not cause the violence.”
“I don’t know what was in the mind of the East Texas organizers, but to say you wanted to protest Portland sounds like you wanted to bring the violence from there to East Texas.”
Tyler Police Chief Jimmy Toler downplayed the level of violence that took place Sunday.
“There has been one report filed, so when you say violence and stuff like that,” Toler said, “yeah, there was a violent altercation, but the vast majority of people that were involved in that protest, or that rally yesterday, we’re involved in that.”
That police report was filed by Ryan Miller, Gilbert’s campaign manager. Miller claims he was attacked by demonstrators who supported Gohmert, suffering an injury to his face. He claims the attacker stole his cell phone, as well.
Some of those in attendance claim police officers were slow to respond and failed to prevent the fight. Toler says he had about 20 officers, including an assistant chief and other senior members, walking among the protesters and along the periphery of the square.
“We set our guys up so can be able to go in there and respond,” he explained. “We don’t put officers in the middle of a protest, whether it’s pro-police or anti-police, whether it has to do with other political statements or things that are going on, because it’s not our intention to become the focal point of the actual protest, itself.”
Toler says his officers did a good job in responding to the escalating tension.
“When we got there, I think the altercation had already concluded,” he mentioned. “There were still some tempers that were going on, but it was the officers themselves and the command staff there that were able to deescalate that situation very quickly and professionally.”
Toler says a couple of the demonstrators had words for each other, but everyone dispersed, and the protests ended shortly thereafter. He says this was the first time there had been any violence during a protest in Tyler since they began in response to the death of George Floyd.
“We want to support everyone as they go through this, but also with the understanding that we will do our jobs and that we will fully investigate it,” he said. “And if we determine that somebody needs to be charged, then we’ll charge them.”
Some of the counter-protesters brought signs showing encouraging voters to choose Gohmert, but he says those were not his supporters.
“If it were my supporters, that were going out there, I would’ve heard about it before they got out there,” he said. “And I didn’t even know this was going on.”
Gohmert says he first heard about the protests when a friend texted him about it as he was departing Tyler to return to Washington D.C.
Gohmert says he hoped there would be no more violence during the campaign. “When I talk about fighting, I’m talking about using a war of words,” he added, “and I have always found that the truth was the best weapon. So, that’s what I’ll continue to do.”
Toler says he did not know if anyone attending the protests received a warning for not wearing a face-covering. But he did mention that a lack of mask use could be another reason why few officers were among the crowd until the fighting began.
“As these protests go on, the safety of individuals that are out there, the safety of our officers that are also out there, being put into a situation where there’s not social distancing going on, where there’s not everybody wearing a mask, it puts those officers in additional dangers, and we have those concerns, also,” he said. “So, as we deal with this on the outside and come in to take care of it, that’s another consideration we have to deal with.”