Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol

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Two Proud Boys accused of leading a mob to Congress followed a bloody path to get there. Law enforcement did little to stop them.

By David D. Kirkpatrick and Alan Feuer

March 14, 2021 Updated 12:41 p.m. ET

A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.

Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Mr. Nordean.

Now, Mr. Biggs, 37, and Mr. Nordean, 30, are major targets in a federal investigation that prosecutors on Thursday said could be “one of the largest in American history.” They face some of the most serious charges stemming from the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January: leading a mob of about 100 Proud Boys in a coordinated plan to disrupt the certification of President Donald J. Trump’s electoral defeat.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/us/proud-boys-law-enforcement.html

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What a shocker. After all, they couldn't upset Mussolini Mini-Me's base.

[pwb]

2. Hate groups would kill a cop without thought.

Cops are fools to think they are friends.

[stopdiggin]

3. goes without saying at this point

but a lot of LE ARE allies and sympathizers. Not just a matter of a blind eye.

[Iggo]

4. Some of those that work forces...

You know the rest.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

“They committed violence in public, used videos of that violence to promote themselves for other rallies and then traveled across the country to engage in violence again,” said Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and a former F.B.I. agent who worked undercover among right-wing groups. “How that didn’t attract F.B.I. attention is hard for me to understand.”

Local police officers have appeared at times to side with the Proud Boys, especially when they have squared off against leftists openly critical of law enforcement. Some local officials have complained that without guidance from federal agencies, their police departments were ill equipped to understand the dangers of a national movement like the group.

The group, whose total membership is unknown but believed to be in the thousands, has never articulated a specific ideology or dogma. Its rallies, though, feature hyper-nationalist chants about immigration, Islam and Mr. Trump. Its members have lionized Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, and their events often appear to be thinly disguised pretexts to bait opponents into confrontations.

Indeed, the Proud Boys have made little effort to hide violent intentions. In fall 2018, for example, members of a New England chapter posted notes on the online service Venmo as they paid their monthly dues and transportation costs to an October “Resist Marxism” rally in Providence, R.I.

The event would quickly degenerate into brawls, just what some of the Proud Boys had anticipated.

“October blood money and bus,” one wrote with his payment.

“Right wing atrocities,” wrote another.

“Helicopter fuel. Those filthy commies are not going to push themselves out of helicopters,” quipped a third, alluding to Pinochet’s practice of executing dissidents by dropping them from the air.