Officers say they are prepared to work this weekend as a Back the Blue rally and Black Lives Matter counterprotest take place at the Coles County Courthouse.

The Coles County Sheriff’s Office and Charleston Police Department will work in tandem with each other during the weekend to direct crowds of people in both groups.

CPD Chief Chad Reed said his department will have extra manpower for the weekend’s events.

CCSO Chief Deputy Tyler Heleine said the sheriff’s office scheduled more officers so they will be able to have officers dedicated to the downtown area as well as have officer’s available for regular duties.

“When we have big events like that they may go into the roadway or things like that we try to plan for it,” Heleine said.

He said there is no “magic number,” but they try to make sure they have enough officers to cover regular calls and the event happening.

Heleine said the sheriff’s office is not connected with the organizers of the rally and they were not apart of the planning for the rally.

He added he is not concerned about the weekend’s events because they have not had issues in the past during protests.

“All of these events we’ve had in our county so far in the last year have been peaceful,” Heleine said. “We haven’t had problems.”

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or cebrock@eiu.edu.