Proud Boys to pay church over $1 million in burning of ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign

The Proud Boys organization must pay more than $1 million to a historic Black church in D.C. after a judge determined members of the group damaged a Black Lives Matter sign displayed on the building’s front lawn in 2020.

Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church sued the Proud Boys International LLC in 2021 after alleging members of the group vandalized the church’s sign during a march in December 2020 and subsequently left threatening messages on the church’s voice mail.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Neal E. Kravitz ruled that the Dec. 12, 2020, rally by hundreds of Proud Boys members and supporters following President Donald Trump’s failed reelection bid was an “attack” on Metropolitan AME Church that “resulted from a highly orchestrated set of events focused on the Proud Boys’s guiding principles: white supremacy and violence.” In the 34-page ruling, the judge ordered the Proud Boys to pay the church $1.03 million.

During multiple hearings, members of the church, including Metropolitan’s pastor, the Rev. William H. Lamar IV, testified that several members of the Proud Boys tore down and destroyed the Black Lives Matter sign the church had erected in June 2020 after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police.

The church, which opened its doors in the late 1800s and is located at 15th and M streets in Northwest Washington, sought damages to replace the sign and to cover additional security that church officials said was needed since the incident.

In 2022, Metropolitan filed an amended complaint against the Proud Boys and identified the group’s leaders, including Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the group’s then-chairman, as well as John Turano, Ethan Nordean, Joseph R. Biggs and Jeremy Bertino as co-defendants.

None of the co-defendants appeared in court regarding the lawsuit. Judgment against Nordean was delayed after his wife said he wanted time to respond.

Tarrio, Biggs and Nordean were found guilty at trial of seditious conspiracy and multiple other felonies, including obstructing Congress related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Bertino, who testified against them, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy last year. Biggs, Nordean and Tarrio have been incarcerated since their arrests. They are scheduled to be sentenced later this year. Bertino is also awaiting sentencing but is out on supervised release.

Lawyers for Biggs, Bertino and Tarrio did not immediately respond Friday. Turano is not publicly charged with any crime. He could not be reached Friday evening.

Tarrio claimed responsibility for burning a Black Lives Matter banner from another D.C. church that same night and was arrested when he arrived in D.C. on Jan. 4, 2021. Federal prosecutors said that incident helped explain why the Proud Boys turned on police two days later. Tarrio was ultimately sentenced in D.C. Superior Court to five months in jail.

“The ultimate goal of this lawsuit was not monetary windfall, but to stop the Proud Boys from being able to act with impunity, without fear of consequences for their actions. And that’s exactly what we accomplished,” said Arthur Ago, director the Criminal Justice Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law that represented the church.

The Proud Boys is registered in Texas as a limited liability company with more than 22,000 members as of 2020, the judge wrote in his ruling. Kravitz said the group has “demonstrated considerable prowess” to support itself raising money through fundraising.

Kravitz wrote the Proud Boys in the fall of 2020 “reached a new level of prominence” when Trump referenced the group during his first national debate during the general election campaign. Asked to condemn white supremacists, Trump stated instead, “Proud Boys - stand back and stand by.” The judge wrote that the group then saw a “spike” in recruits.

The vandalism, church officials said, harked back to threats made against Black churches in the 1800s by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The judge said that replacing the sign and protecting the church cost only $36,626.78. “But compensatory damages alone will not address the defendants’ reprehensible conduct or the extraordinary emotional trauma suffered by the church and its congregants,” he wrote. “To the members of the church, the burning of the Black Lives Matter sign represented a complete negation of their right to worship as they please and, more fundamentally, to participate fully in the life of the community - and forced them to harken back to the long and painful history of white supremacists committing wanton acts of violence against Black churches.”

A follow-up hearing in the case has been set for August.