The leader of the alt-right group the Proud Boys has been banned from Washington D.C. after he allegedly burned a Black Lives Matter banner.
Enrique Tarrio, 36, was arrested in D.C. on Monday after being accused of tearing down the BLM banner from a historically Black church and burning it last month. Tarrio was reportedly seen in video destroying it.
A judge banned him from D.C. on Tuesday, and he is only allowed to appear in court or meet with his lawyer.
He’s charged with the destruction of property and firearm possession after police found him with two unloaded magazines with the Proud Boys logo on them.
“There was no hate crime committed,” Tarrio wrote on a right-wing site called Parler. “It isn’t about the color of the someone’s skin. Against the wishes of my attorney, I am here today to admit that I am the person responsible for the burning of this sign. And I am not ashamed of what I did because I didn’t do it out of hate … I did it out of love.”
“I had a customer that bought those two mags, and they got returned ’cause it was a wrong address,” he added. “And I contacted him, and he’s like, ‘I’m going to be in DC,’ so I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ll take ‘em to you.’ So that I can show you proof…I can give you, like my invoices and stuff like that from it, and, like, the USPS shipping label.”
