Students form human wall to protect soldier’s funeral from Westboro Baptist protesters
Students and alumni of Texas A&M University formed what they called a “maroon wall” of volunteers around Central Baptist Church in College Park, Texas on Thursday, shielding the funeral of Army Lieutenant Colonel Roy Lin Tisdale from a group of protesters from the notorious Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas. College Park’s KBTX Channel 3 reported that a group of more than 600 counter-protesters turned out in the Texas university’s school colors to block the grieving family’s view of the Westboro Baptist members, who, in the end, never showed up.
Tisdale, 42, was killed in a training exercise on June 28 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was a graduate of Texas A&M who served tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Westboro Baptist is the parish of anti-LGBT pastor Fred Phelps, whose extended family form the
