On Friday, a judge granted over $1 million in damages to a downtown Washington, D.C., Black church that had filed a lawsuit against the far-right group Proud Boys.
The lawsuit was filed in response to the group’s act of tearing down and burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a protest in 2020.
Judge Neal A. Kravitz of the Superior Court not only granted a financial settlement but also imposed a five-year restraining order on the Proud Boys and their leaders.
This order prevents them from coming close to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church and prohibits them from making any threats or defamatory comments directed at the church or its pastor.
The court issued a default judgment after the defendants failed to attend the court proceedings to dispute the case.
In December 2020, during tensions between Donald Trump supporters and counter-demonstrators, two Black Lives Matter banners were torn down and burned at Metropolitan AME and another historically Black church.
A series of weekend rallies in support of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of winning a second term resulted in destructive incidents, including arrests, stabbings, and injuries to police officers.
Metropolitan AME Church sued the Proud Boys and their leaders for breaking federal and D.C. laws pertaining to trespassing and damaging religious property as part of a bias-based conspiracy.
Prosecutors revealed that Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio publicly admitted to setting fire to a banner that had been taken from Asbury United Methodist Church.
In July 2021, Tarrio pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges related to property destruction and attempted possession of a high-capacity magazine. He was subsequently sentenced to more than five months in jail.
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