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.
“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.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Judge awards D.C. Black church $1 million after Black Lives Matter banner burned by Proud BoysA 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.
Read more »
Judge awards Black church $1 million after BLM banner burned by Proud Boys during protestTwo BLM banners were pulled down from two historically Black churches and burned in December 2020.
Read more »
Judge awards Black church $1 million after BLM banner burned by Proud Boys during protestA 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.
Read more »
Judge Awards Black Church $1 Million After Proud Boys Burned BLM FlagThe ruling was a default judgment issued after the defendants failed to show up in court to fight the case.
Read more »
Black church awarded $1 million after BLM banner burned by Proud Boys during protestA 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.
Read more »
Fraud lawsuit against Black Lives Matter foundation dismissed in CaliforniaA California judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit that grassroots racial justice activists from around the U.S. brought last summer against a foundation with stewardship of the Black Lives Matter movement’s charitable endowment worth tens of millions of dollars
Read more »