Individuals involved with the far-right organization the Proud Boys, which had a substantial presence at the Capitol riot in 2021, have been hit by a court in Washington, D.C., with roughly $1 million in financial penalties connected to an incident in which a banner supporting Black Lives Matter was taken from a local church and burned.
The financial award imposed on those Proud Boys members was meant for that church.
The incident took place in late 2020, not long before the Capitol attack later happened. Those now responsible for the associated costs in this court judgment include former national leader Enrique Tarrio, who was also convicted by a jury of seditious conspiracy in connection to actions he took around the Capitol riot in 2021. Another who is also liable for the costs is Joe Biggs, who was also charged with and convicted of seditious conspiracy tied to what happened at the Capitol. There, he had been among the first to push towards violence and was alleged at one point by Ryan Samsel, a riot participant who helped kick off actual physical confrontations with police officers, to have demanded he do such a thing, flashing a gun in support of his pressure.
The new court order from D.C. doesn’t provide a particularly comprehensively explained reason for the judgment against Tarrio and the other right-wing extremists. Tarrio already faced a criminal case and time in jail in connection to what happened. The affected church was the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, and besides the financial penalties, those named in the ruling are also essentially under restraining order-like terms blocking them from approaching either the church or a pastor there. They’re also formally restricted from making statements regarding either that are defamatory or threatening or otherwise threaten to interfere with the church or its pastor’s religious work.
Just in: A DC court has issued a $1 million civil judgment against Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs and other Proud Boys for the vandalism of a Black church in a violent episode following a pro-Trump rally in DC in Dec 2020. pic.twitter.com/Y82dkY9GFA
— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) June 30, 2023
