Proud Boys frontman now says he’s not proud of his crimes – Mother Jones
Proud Boys frontman Enrique Tarrio during a rally in Portland, Oregon on September 26, 2020Dinner Allison / AP
Enrique Tarrio, the boastful “president” of the violent far-right group known as the Proud Boys, says he is no longer proud to lead a mob that destroyed property in a historic black church in Washington, DC, late last year.
On Monday, Tarrio was sentenced to more than five months in jail for two misdemeanors, after admitting his guilt in a plea deal in July. After a pro-Trump rally in Washington on December 12, Tarrio led the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen by a group of Proud Boys from Asbury United Methodist Church, located near the White House. Several weeks later, Tarrio was arrested by DC police, who found him carrying two high-capacity rifle magazines stamped with the Proud Boys logo in the nation’s capital just before the January 6 insurrection.
A leader since 2018 of a group known for antagonistic demonstrations on behalf of President Donald Trump and street fights targeting “antifa,” Tarrio expressed remorse during his sentencing hearing Monday as he faced the prospect of spending time in a DC jail, a change. notorious. from his earlier gloating over the attacks on BLM, and later Congress.
“In the burning of the BLM sign, it was I who set it on fire”, he declared upon The boys of war, a Proud Boys podcast, last December. “I was the person who stepped forward, put a lighter on it and set it on fire. And I’m very proud to have done it. “
On Monday, Tarrio told DC Superior Court Judge Harold L. Cushenberry that he had made “a serious mistake” with that act. “I would like to deeply apologize for my actions.” he said, noting that he “heard the pain” in the voice of the church’s senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. Ianther Mills, who spoke during the hearing about how his congregation was terrified of the Proud Boys “marauding gang.”
After Tarrio’s arrest in early January, he was barred from entering the city as the United States Capitol was under unprecedented threat, including from numerous Proud Boy members who would later be indicted in the siege of Congress. Tarrio was not in DC on January 6, but he applauded the attack via the social media platform Parler. Tarrio hailed the insurgents as “revolutionaries” and “heroes” and said he was “enjoying the show” as the pro-Trump mob brutally beat police officers, threatened to assassinate the US Vice President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, and took over of the Senate chamber. “Proud of my boys and my country,” he posted. “Don’t fucking go.”
Judge Cushenberry didn’t buy Tarrio’s mea culpa. “This court must respect the right of any citizen to peacefully assemble, protest and make their views known on the issues,” he said. “But Mr. Tarrio’s conduct in these criminal cases does not vindicate any of these democratic values. Instead, Mr. Tarrio’s actions betrayed them. “The judge added that Tarrio’s claim of an” innocent mistake “was not credible and that he did not take into account DC laws:” He cared about himself and self-promotion. “Cushenberry said.
In particular, Tarrio’s efforts to profit from the Trump-era MAGA policy have included his working surreptitiously to sell BLM t-shirts online. Tarrio, who speaks harshly, proved to have another side as well: in late January, when federal prosecutors were investigating a possible Proud Boys case. conspiracy at the Capitol site, news emerged that Tarrio had a long history of working as an undercover snitch for the FBI, connected to his personal history of commit fraud.
