Judge awards Black church $1 million after BLM banner burned by Proud Boys during protest

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Friday awarded more than $1 million to a Black church in downtown Washington, D.C. that sued the far-right Proud Boys for tearing down and burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a 2020 protest.

Superior Court Associated Judge Neal A. Kravitz also barred the extremist group and its leaders from coming near the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church or making threats or defamatory remarks against the church or its pastor for five years.

The ruling was a default judgment issued after the defendants failed to show up in court to fight the case.

Two Black Lives Matter banners were pulled down from Metropolitan AME and another historically Black church and burned during clashes between pro-Donald Trump supporters and counterdemonstrators in December 2020.

The destruction took place after weekend rallies by thousands of people in support of Trump’s baseless claims that he won a second term, which led to dozens of arrests, several stabbings and injuries to police officers.

Metropolitan AME sued the Proud Boys and their leaders, alleging they violated D.C. and federal law by trespassing and destroying religious property in a bias-related conspiracy.

Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, of Miami, publicly acknowledged setting fire to one banner, which prosecutors said was stolen from Asbury United Methodist Church.

In July 2021, Tarrio pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor criminal charges of property destruction and attempted possession of a high-capacity magazine.

He was sentenced to more than five months in jail.

Tarrio and other members of the Proud Boys were separately convicted of seditious conspiracy charges as part of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election.