Incident during Black Lives Matter protest in Perryville leads to assault charge

A 47-year-old Perryville, Missouri, resident has been charged with assault after a June 7 encounter with a protester at a rally in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A release from Perryville Police Department said Rick Drescher has been charged with assault for the incident, which identified Jeremiah Choka, 21, of Cape Girardeau County as the victim.

Interviews with Drescher and Choka indicate the incident began when Choka started recording video of Dresher at the rally.

In an interview that day, Drescher said he counter-protested the rally “to make sure that the (expletive) that’s been going on in other towns don’t happen in this one” and specifically referred to concerns regarding the destruction of property. He also dissented with the number of Black Lives Matter demonstrations being held across the country.

“If you know [George Floyd] and you want to throw a protest — fine. But them running around saying ‘Black Lives Matter’? What about you? If I punch you in the nose, don’t you bleed red? If I get shot, I’m gonna bleed red,” Drescher said. “If they want to keep it up, we can show them that they bleed red, too.”

During the interview, a member of the Perryville Police Department asked Drescher to refrain from approaching the protest and warned Drescher that doing so would likely result in a fight.

In an interview days after the event, Choka, who attended the rally in support of the “Black Lives Matter’ movement said he identified Drescher as a possible threat to the protest based on body language exhibited during a confrontation between Drescher and a female protester. The observation prompted him to begin recording Drescher’s actions, and after joining in a “Black Lives Matter” chant, Choka said Drescher focused on him specifically.

“After rewatching my own evidence and footage, it appeared that [Drescher] was trying to shoulder check my phone out of my hand, and in doing so he ended up actually chest-bumping me,” Choka said. “And because he was already trying to be very close to my face — I believe intimidating me — he actually went mouth-to-mouth with me.”

According to Choka, the mouth-to-mouth contact prompted him to step away from Drescher “out of shock” as a nearby Perryville police officer “immediately” took Drescher away from the protest. Drescher was escorted and detained one block north at the Perryville police station as Choka wrote a statement about the incident.

In a June 8 phone call to the Southeast Missourian, Perryville police chief Direk Hunt said officers’ body cameras were active at the time of the incident and captured footage of Drescher contacting Choka in the chest but did not capture footage of the mouth-to-mouth contact.

According to Choka, Drescher was released from police custody before he had completed his own written statement about the incident.

“Once you assault somebody at a public function, you shouldn’t be allowed to just go back up there,” Choka said.

In the days following the protest, videos of the incident were posted to Choka’s profile on TikTok showing Drescher as he stood amongst the protesters and shouted “white power” in between the groups’ “Black Lives Matter” chants.

During thephone call, Hunt said the men “got into each others’ faces a little bit” but there was no “hand-on” interaction between the two.

“I thought it went well,” Hunt said about the protest. “[The protesters] were coming over and shaking our hands afterwards and saying how good of a job we did. ... I thought it went, overall, well.”

Disputes between Black Lives Matter demonstrators and counter-protesters along North Jackson Street arose sporadically throughout that afternoon, and members of both sides crossed the street at various occasions.