Proud Boys founder asked neighbors to take down anti-hate signs: report

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes reportedly asked his neighbors to take down anti-hate yard signs that he claimed targeted him and the far-right group.

The Daily Beast reported Friday that McInnes, who left the Proud Boys group in November, sent a letter to neighbors last week asking them to remove the signs.

{mosads}“I am writing on behalf of my family to ask you to reconsider whether the message of your lawn sign moves our world and our village in the direction of love at all, or whether it sends a very different message instead,” McInnes wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Daily Beast.

McInnes describes himself as “a pro-gay, pro-Israel, virulently anti-racist libertarian.” The Proud Boys labels itself as “a pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.”

He writes that “hate certainly has no place here, and like you I am committed to keeping it that way.”

The Proud Boys group was reportedly described by the FBI in an internal document as an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism,” at least since summer 2018. A high-ranking member of the FBI in Oregon later contradicted the report, writing that the agency does not designate the far-right Proud Boys as an extremist group.

In his letter, McInnes reportedly describes the group as a “drinking club” he started “as a joke.”

“The Proud Boys are a drinking club I started several years ago as a joke,” McInnes wrote, according to the Daily Beast. “There is no racial or ethnic component to its membership, its program or the idea behind it. As it is, I quit my involvement with the group recently and have nothing to do with it whatsoever.”

At least five members of the group were arrested in November following a street brawl in Manhattan with anti-fascist demonstrators. The incident led Amazon and PayPal to cut ties with the group.

McInnes has repeatedly denied that the “Proud Boys” is a white nationalist or alt-right organization.