Great Falls Rally Postponed, LE Appreciation Day Goes Forward
Editors note: below is the post from Friday on rally organizer Rick Tryon’s Facebook page.
“After a lot of thought and consultation we have decided to go forward with the Local Law Enforcement Appreciation Day next Wednesday, July 29 but we are postponing the rally that evening until a later date.
Here’s why:
I have received numerous messages and communications from folks who really want to attend a rally and show their support for GFPD and CCSO but don’t feel safe just yet because of COVID-19.
There were 20 new cases reported in Cascade County today, Friday.
Regardless of what folks think about masks and social distancing etc. there are a lot of people who just don’t feel comfortable being at a larger gathering right now, even if it’s outdoors, and we want the rally to support law-enforcement to be an event that’s well and enthusiastically attended.
So we will postpone the rally until later on this summer or fall but continue with the other great events scheduled for next Wednesday.
In addition, please remember that tomorrow, Saturday, you can pick up ‘406 Back The Blue’ signs at 518 Central Ave. between 10 and 2 PM. All proceeds will go to the Great Falls community police foundation and we will have some great ideas on how you can use that sign next Wednesday.
Also please go to the go fund me page here and donate to the Great Falls community police foundation. Stay tuned, lots more coming up.”
So the rally is announced July 21, and just three days later on July 24 is postponed due to coronavirus concerns after “a lot of thought and consultation”. The c-virus situation in Cascade County didn’t take a dramatic turn for the worse in those three days.
Leads one to wonder if this event was carefully thought through before the announcement.
There were 35 new cases reported in Cascade County in those 3 days. Largest 3 day total to-date.
All us regular folk have to go on is the numbers reported on the Trib or KRTV web sites off the State’s map that gets updated each morning at 10:00 am.
So the (8 or 10) cases for Friday the 24th wouldn’t have been visible until the morning of Saturday the 25th, after the event was postponed on the 24th. Which would leave the 20 reported for the 23rd on the morning of Friday the 24th, and the 0 and 0 reported for the 21st and 22nd respectively. Total of 20.
Meanwhile, prior to Tuesday the 21st, there were 3 for the 18th, 8 for the 19th, and 2 for the 20th. All reported the next days. Total of 13. No dramatic turn for the worse to 20, but a continuation of a trend that existed prior to the announcment on te 21st. Granted the 20 in one day that became public on the 24th was alarming enough.
If you have a better number source, please share. It would be a public service. Thanks.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make other than just being contrary for some reason. Governor Bullock issued a new face mask directive on July 15 because of a Covid-19 surge in the state. The highest 3 day total of reported cases in Cascade County was between Thursday July 23 & Saturday July 25. 20 new cases reported for Thursday (on KRTV Friday morning), 10 for Friday and 5 for Saturday, all reported by KRTV.
The article here clearly states that the reason the rally was postponed was because the organizers received “numerous messages and communications from folks who really want to attend a rally and show their support for GFPD and CCSO but don’t feel safe just yet because of COVID-19.”
Your criticism and suspicion seems fabricated and totally misplaced. Postponing the rally in light of the recent unexpected surge in COVID numbers, regardless of when it was originally announced, seems perfectly legitimate.
The cases reported for Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th would not have been known 11:00 am Friday the 24th when the rally was postponed. The “35 cases” you cited for whatever reason would not have been a factor in the decision because at the time only 20 were known..
But the original point was that maybe scheduling this rally with even the daily new case counts known on the 21st had not been well thought out. The “numerous messages and communications from folks who really want to attend a rally and show their support for GFPD and CCSO but don’t feel safe just yet because of COVID-19” would tend to bear that out.
You are simply incorrect. A simple search will reveal that KRTV posted the 20 new cases in Cascade County, it’s largest one day total, at 10:13 AM on Friday morning July 24, before the rally was postponed. It’s likely that the 20 new cases were a factor in the decision to postpone the rally.
Quite frankly you look a little silly and petty here. Mostly because you are making wrong presumptions about the timing of the reporting. Here is the link to the timestamped KRTV report
https://www.krtv.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-in-montana-friday-july-24?fbclid=IwAR1wRbyNP2JJ_vCDGrakbaBdAXjgYhB8ATBkfcfwHb0pVk3veu-L_VIkHsM
I agree they posted the 20 cases on July 24, before the rally was canceled. That’s not in dispute.
However, the additional cases you included to come up with the “35 cases largest 3 day count to date” were not known until Saturday and Sunday. So that point of yours, whatever its purpose, was simply irrelevant to the original onbservation that there was no dramatic turn for the worse known at the time the decision to cancel was made. Unless I misunderstood completely, and the comment about 35 cases meant nothing in particular, just random information.
“Unless I misunderstood completely…” Bingo. The article you were commenting on didn’t say anything about 35 new cases being the reason the rally was postponed, Tryon mentioned the 20 new cases reported on Friday.
Here is your original comment: “The c-virus situation in Cascade County didn’t take a dramatic turn for the worse in those three days (21-24).
Leads one to wonder if this event was carefully thought through before the announcement.”
That the virus didn’t take a ‘turn for the worse’ from 7/21 – 7/24 is just not factually accurate. The virus had the largest 1 day increase in cases, 20, reported on the 24th, before the rally was postponed. That is a fairly dramatic ‘turn for the worse’, wouldn’t you say?
“Leads one to wonder if this event was carefully thought through before the announcement.” but apparently you are the only ‘one to wonder’. And that leads to the question, why are you so fixated on trying to make the point that you seem so desperate to make here? Why do you think it’s so important to try and fabricate a reason and postulate your opinion as to why a ‘support law enforcement rally’ was postponed? It makes you appear petty, unless there’s some personal or great public interest at stake for you to try to push your theory that the event wasn’t ‘…carefully thought through before the announcement.’
Seriously, why do you care? Judging by other comments you’ve made on our blog your reason here appears to be purely political and kind of weirdly nit-picky.
Correct, the original article said nothing about the 35 cases biggest 3 days ever. That was a comment added by ECB staff about “those three days”. But “those three days” saw just 20, which was not a huge increase over the three days prior to the announcement of the rally in the first place. As to why I care about it … the statement about the 35 days was for some reason added by ECB Staff in reply to my comment, and it was either intentionally or mistakenly misleading.
And for whatever reason the event was canceled just three days after being announced, it’s evident it wasn’t well thought through in the first place, if nothing else based on the feedback Mr. Tryon said he received from the target audience.
Your comment about perceived political criticism is odd, since this appears to be blog/news site dedicated to second guessing and criticizing politcians. Are some off limits? That should probably be added to the masthead, then.
No, your exact original comment, BEFORE ECB replied, was “The c-virus situation in Cascade County didn’t take a dramatic turn for the worse in those three days (21-24).” That statement is demonstrably false. The virus most certainly did take a ‘dramatic turn for the worse’ with the largest one day increase, 20, which occurred in the 3 day period you mentioned. But you are correct that the 35 new cases didn’t occur in the 3 day period of the 21 – 24, it occurred between the 23 – 25.
The fact remains that the virus was surging during that period in general, and it most certainly took a ‘dramatic turn for the worse’ right before the event was postponed, as Tryon mentioned, which irrefutably contradicts your incorrect statement. Spin it however you like – you were wrong when you said “The c-virus situation in Cascade County didn’t take a dramatic turn for the worse in those three days (21-24).”
But please feel free to continue to engage in your narrowly targeted political jabs and fabricated speculations on the reasons a rally was postponed, which is kind of weird. And when you’re wrong, as you were here, we’ll continue to point it out.
And thank you for reading our blog and contributing clicks – you’re a part of the reason E-City Beat continues to be so successful.
“No, your exact original comment, BEFORE ECB replied, was “The c-virus situation in Cascade County didn’t take a dramatic turn for the worse in those three days (21-24).” That statement is demonstrably false.”
It is not. In the 3 days leading up to the announcement, there had been a steady drip of new cases, 3-8-2, totaling 13. In the three days after, there were 20. (And if you apply some critical thinking, the 0-0-20 kind of looks like some “catchup” reporting for those two zero days.) In any case, seven extra cases in a county of population ~82,000 does not constitute “a dramatic turn for the worse”. It’s merely a continuation of the existing trend. Now what is demonstably false is the 35 number, but we seem to have moved past that. Good.
You are correct the virus was surging in that period in general, in Montana as a whole and also in Cascade County. There were something like 65 (?) active cases in the county on July 21, with the daily drip of new cases. That is exactly why in my opinion announcing this rally at that time was not well considered. Especially by a sitting City official. The fact that many people contacted Rick to say, “I would like to do it but am leery of the virus” is prima facie proof.
And by the way, I have not speculated at all on why the rally was canceled. That’s entirely your construct. I can accept any or all reasons given by Rick. The “why” is not an issue. The comment I posted was one about forethought, as in whether or not it was wise to announce such a rally at that time at all. Even if the cause was/is a good one.
In hopefully parting, let me say thank you, too, for your careful and thoughtful engagement of my original post. I do have to say this is an interesting website. It’s the first I have ever encountered where a reader’s comment about something written by a public figure is met by multiple long posts and hundreds of lines of bullyragging by the site’s “staff”. Usually staff stays a bit more neutral.