At least four hundred people turned up to line Frank Street in Edgerton, Missouri Friday night.  Many of them would rather have been a quarter mile up the road, inside the Mount Zion Baptist Church, remembering their friends and neighbors, Britny Haarup and Ashley Key.

The sisters were killed a week ago, and the church was offering a celebration of life in their honor.

Trouble is, another church announced it would bring picketers from Topeka to protest at the funeral.  You know which church.  You may not know their reason for returning to Platte County.  THEY may not know their reason for returning to Platte County. Their stated reason for returning to Platte County was to protest the way they were treated by law enforcement the last time they were in Platte County.

They did manage to say something about the subjects of the celebration inside the church in  Edgerton Friday.

According to their picket schedule, “God sent the drugged, raping, murdering thug to execute his judgment upon MO, and specifically upon Platte County.”

That didn’t sit very well with the folks along Frank Street outside the church in Edgerton.  Many rode motorcycles to get there, some from as far away as Clay County, others from across Northwest Missouri.  One family from Trimble, Missouri cruised back and forth along Frank Street and offered free water to any and all takers. By the time the services inside the church began, the folks from Trimble had given away more than 350 bottles of water.

By one estimation, it was the biggest traffic tie-up to hit Frank Street in decades.

Dozens of law officers were on the scene, including Edgerton police, Platte County Sheriff Richard Anderson along with members of his top brass, road patrol, and special operations team,  and several troopers and officers from the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Troop A.

Captain Erik Holland of the Platte County Sheriff’s Office says they were in Edgerton to preserve the peace.

“Under the Constitution, people have the right to assemble peacefully, and they have the right to say whatever’s on their mind because of freedom of speech,” Holland said.  “We’re here to make sure we don’t have any fights, pushing, shoving or any violations or breach of the peace.”

There were ongoing rumors about the location and plans of the contingent from the church from Topeka, if there was one.  Many were shared via social media, and others moved through the crowd by word of mouth.  The details varied each of three times we heard the rumor repeated.  In the end, many among the crowd outside the church in Edgerton concluded that those folks from the Church in Topeka never showed up.