 JUNE 11 • 2020 | 23

spirits are dying and we’
re standing idly by… 
We’
ve lived too long in a completely ignorant and 
racist society, and I’
m sick of it.
”
In the police station parking lot, Reynolds and 
Callahan each said a few words, followed by a 
short speech from West Bloomfield Police Chief 
Mike Patton. Protesters also observed a moment 
of silence for Breonna Taylor’
s birthday. Taylor 
was killed in her Kentucky home on March 13, 
when police officers entered her apartment on a 
search warrant and shot her at least eight times. 
“Right now is a time for police officers to lis-
ten to what their communities are telling them,
” 
Patton said. 
There was one uncomfortable encounter near 

the beginning of the protest. A man with a gun 
clipped to his waistband approached a group of 
protesters. 
In a video clip posted to Facebook by West 
Bloomfield resident Claire Jolliffe, Callahan tells 
the man the organizers didn’
t want any private 
citizens with guns in the vicinity. The man said he 
believed in the same cause as the organizers, but 
that he wanted young people to understand that 
“firearms don’
t incite violence.
” 
After a few moments, West Bloomfield Deputy 
Chief Curt Lawson came over to explain the 
man had a right to be at the protest with his 
gun. “I know him, he’
s not a threat,
” Lawson told 
Callahan.
Callahan told the JN after the protest that 

although the situation was uncomfortable, he 
understood the man had a right to bear arms. He 
also appreciated Lawson’
s efforts to “help contrib-
ute to the de-escalation of the situation, which is 
what we stand for.
” 
Jolliffe hopes there will be another protest in 
West Bloomfield soon that highlights the prob-
lems with policing in Oakland County. 
- Maya Goldman

HUNTINGTON WOODS
An estimated 700 people, many of them teenag-
ers, staked out their own Black Lives Matter pro-
test in Huntington Woods, a city of around 6,000 
residents, late in the afternoon on Friday, June 5. 
Marchers largely stuck to the sidewalks as 
they made their way from the Huntington 
Woods Lutheran Church on 11 Mile Road and 
Scotia, onto a brief, busy stretch of Woodward 
Avenue, before turning down Lincoln Drive into 
a residential neighborhood. Many cars along 
Woodward honked their approval.
“Huntington Woods cannot be silent — we 
must support the movement for black lives,
” Maya 
Edery, who co-organized the march with a group 
of seven of her friends, neighbors and immediate 
family, told the JN. 
Edery, 27, is a Huntington Woods native 
home from New York for the summer. She said 
she was inspired by her grandparents, longtime 
Huntington Woods residents Arnie and Lainie 
Shifman, who “taught me the importance of 
speaking out when something is unjust and 
the importance of taking action to create the 
world you want to see.
” Arnie Shifman died this 
January; Lainie marched on Friday alongside her 
family.
Chants reciting the names of police violence 
victims George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were 
accompanied by one marcher’
s drums.
The peaceful march was organized on social 
media channels, as well as via email listservs, 
and the majority of marchers were white. Almost 

“We’ve lived too long in 
a completely ignorant 
and raciest society,
and I’m sick of it.”

— RABBI RACHEL LAWSON SHERE

ALEXANDER CLEGG/JEWISH NEWS
ALEXANDER CLEGG/JEWISH NEWS
MAYA GOLDMAN/JEWISH NEWS

ANDREW LAPIN/JEWISH NEWS

ANDREW LAPIN/JEWISH NEWS

continued on page 24

