Blue Lives Matter Rally Held: Police 'Need To Know We Support Them'

NATICK (CBS) - Standing together as one, dozens of people gathered at the Town Common in Natick for a Blue Lives Matter rally on Saturday.

They held signs and embraced each other as they remembered fallen Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna.

"It's absolutely heart-wrenching," said Bonnie Fitzgibbon, who knew Chesna for more than 14 years, of his murder.

The 42-year-old Chesna was killed last Sunday morning while investigating a car crash.

Police say the man suspected of killing him threw a large rock at the officer, grabbed his gun and repeatedly shot him.

Chesna was laid to rest on Friday and leaves behind a wife and two children.

"After hearing about Officer Chesna's death, there was a sense of sadness and it turned to anger," said  Natick resident Jim Hannon.

Hannon turned his anger into action by organizing the rally. He said he had to do something.

"The police community is so tight and what ends up happening is, one officer dies, they all feel it," Hannon said.

"I can't tell you devastation. He and Cindy were so in love and for something to take that away, (it's) not fair," Fitzgibbon said.

Organizers said this is not a political rally and that all lives matter, but their focus is on police who they feel are coming under attack. Chesna's death will be the beginning of the change that needs to come, they said.

"His name needs to be out there and something needs to change. I don't want to see another family go though what Cindy is going through now," Fitzgibbon said.

Lisa Miller drew a large sketch of Chesna to honor him, and held it during the rally.

"People need to see him as an individual, as a family man, as a law enforcer, as someone who cared about his community," she said.

"We've got young people now hesitating to go into the police academy because of the hostility out there, and they need to see that we back them, that we support them," Miller said.