Brittany Voie Commentary: Let’s Have a Little Grace With Each Other, Even Where We Disagree

Snaza Says 'Don't Be a Sheep' on Mask Mandate
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Oh, Uncle Sam. What your oversized eyes have seen this week.

I followed all the conversation surrounding the rumored Hamilton sign protest, then counterprotest-turned-rally event that happened within the city limits of Napavine this week on Rush Road. As someone who has both written extensively on the history of the infamous Hamilton billboard and finds herself sympathetic to many competing causes these days, I watched the events unfold at Bethel Church online, just a few miles from my house.

And, there was the obvious flashpoint — Sheriff Rob Snaza’s now ubiquitous quote: “Don’t be a sheep.”

But let’s back up for a minute and talk about how this whole thing unfolded. I talked with both Snaza and Field Operations Chief Bruce Kimsey of the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday afternoon with my own questions. 

Both Snaza and Kimsey admit right off the bat that they were caught off-guard by the alleged threats. Rumors included a shutdown of Interstate 5 or a malicious attempt against the sign. Snaza said that he became aware of the Tuesday evening event on Monday night, when he started getting calls and read online that he or another deputy was expected to appear at an event to speak at Bethel Church — one he nor his office had ever heard of or agreed to.

The post I originally saw about the event was from a Kennie Cotton, of Chehalis, who posted an image of himself in a camo Trump 2020 hat and claimed the following: “To all my friends that have concerns about the hamilton sign. They will be a meeting held by one of our sherriff’s on how to handle rioters in the Bethel church parking lot today at four o’clock....lets have a good turn out and pass this along to all the other Patriots that want to keep out country safe.!!!!!! Share the heck out of this …”

In another post, Jim Smith, owner of Adna Grocery, had posted on Facebook that his customers were telling him that “Antifa” was coming for the Uncle Sam sign and that he was going to “open carry” that night at Napavine City Council afterward. Adna Grocery was the location of the recent law enforcement support event a week or two back.

Despite a lack of sources or real info, both posts had hundreds of comments and shares almost immediately.

So, by the time Tuesday rolls around, everyone’s already in a tizzy. Nevermind that false Antifa rumors have spread in numerous parts of the country. Local individuals were determined to believe that the rumored threats were real. To be fair, their fears were fueled by the recent incident where someone haphazardly attempted to burn down the Hamiton sign back around June 7.

Back to Snaza and Kimsey — knowing that this event was rumored, the Sheriff’s Office did what they needed to do. While the Hamilton sign is within Napavine city limits, and the second part of the rumored event involved Napavine City Council, the Napavine Police Department was expected to take point unless backup was needed for some reason. Those extra hours and resources were authorized and the Sheriff’s Office requested permission from Bethel Church to use their parking lot for law enforcement staging in the event that a coordinated response was needed. 

LCSO did not seek clearance from Bethel for a rally event — but why would they have? Sketchy source info. A lot of bluster online, but no confirmed threat, only rumors. All the Sheriff’s Office could do was prep for whatever was to come. Besides that, the counter-protest event to the alleged threats or original protest had been entirely organized on Facebook — the assumption was that those organizers had also cleared the event with Bethel (they hadn’t).

They did not, according to statements from Bethel, and the whole thing caused Bethel Church to close their preschool and daycare programs for the day; locking up shop before anyone arrived to protest or otherwise.



I really liked Kimsey’s very appropriate quote about the whole thing: “The theme of the day yesterday (Tuesday) was ‘I heard.’”

Kimsey said he arrived at Bethel Church prior to 4 p.m. A crowd was already forming. By just after 4 p.m., it seemed clear that the now crowd of somewhere around 200-300 people (estimates vary, Kennie Cotton said it was 1,000), many of them with visible weapons, were not going to disperse until they heard from the sheriff himself.

So, Kimsey said he called Sheriff Snaza about 4:20 p.m. and asked him to come down to the church.

This is where Snaza’s eight-minute impromptu speech took center stage.

Now, we all know what Snaza said at this point: “Don’t be a sheep.” And Snaza’s comments have been interpreted in numerous different ways. My biggest problem here is just how everyone completely ran away with it all. I don’t agree with everything that Snaza said, but I recognize that he was trying to read the crowd, he was trying to connect with people who were feeling really emotional, fearful, and all hopped up on ‘MURICA vibes, to get these people to trust that his agency had everything under control so they would ultimately disperse.

There were claims that Sheriff Snaza was going to “deputize” or “train” the event attendees to defend the Hamilton sign. Snaza says this was not true.

Snaza told me: “How do you keep two to three hundred people at bay? And it was to tell them ‘we got this.’”

After talking with Sheriff Snaza, do I think he would say the same thing over again? No, I don’t. In my conversations with him, he was open and very human with me about it all. We’ve likely all seen the photos and interviews by now of Sheriff Snaza in his fancy custom LCSO face mask (which were ordered prior to all this) and I appreciate his willingness to try to do right by his community. I’ll leave you with some of his quotes:

“I’m the Sheriff, it’s on my shoulders, everyone’s pissed off, I gotta reap what I sow. I won’t take back what I said, it was not a malicious attempt. It was an attempt to help people know that it’s okay to question the governor. I was humbled by the presence of everyone there and all the support,” he said. Adding: “There were people there I had (previously) put in jail.”

At the end of the day, this story is an important reminder that we are all human, we are all facing uncertainty right now, and we’re all a little uncomfortable. Let’s have a little grace with each other where we can, okay?

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Brittany Voie is a columnist for The Chronicle. She lives south of Chehalis with her husband and two young sons. She welcomes correspondence from the community at voiedevelopment@comcast.net.