GREENFIELD, WI — It was Wednesday morning and Sarah Ross was getting in a morning workout at the gym when she heard something unsettling.
She had been closely following the George Floyd-related protests that have been happening throughout the Milwaukee metro area, and overheard that a resident set out a pallet full of rocks and bricks near where a peaceful protest was scheduled to happen in Greenfield.
She learned the pallet of rocks had been set out in front of a house near the area of 92nd Street and Layton, near a busy retail section of Greenfield. If what she heard was true, and the rocks were there, she felt considerable damage could be levied against anything or anyone in the event they were thrown.
“I went out and checked myself,” she said.
Later that day, she drove out to the location of the rocks, and found them – 19 in all – on a pallet at the edge of a driveway.
“They didn’t look like leftover project rocks, or the result of yard work since all the rocks were clean and did not match. They were set out near the street on a pallet, evenly placed, like the owners wanted them removed, less than a few blocks from a protest,” she said. “It didn’t look like they were having a project done.”
Ross said she and her husband picked up the rocks, loaded them into the back of their truck, and drove away with them, leaving any potential Greenfield rock-throwers without the easily-accessible projectiles.
While the police have their role in society, Ross said, she feels it’s up to civic-minded people to help each other in situations where community policing fails to fill the gaps.
“I think it’s important for us to band together as a community,” she told Patch. “In this situation right now, we have to have the kind of community we can depend on. If I’m busy, I want to have people I can call if I need help.”
