Officials: Police shrugged off Proud Boys
Before Jan. 6, agencies passed on opportunities to charge group’s leaders
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 police charged the flag burner with assaulting Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.
Two years later, in Portland, Ore., 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, police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Nordean.
Now Biggs, 37, and Nordean, 30, are major targets in a federal investigation. 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 former President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat.
But an examination of the two men’s histories shows that local and federal law enforcement agencies passed up several opportunities to take action against them and their fellow Proud Boys long before they breached the Capitol.
The group’s propensity for violence and extremism was no secret. But the FBI and other agencies had often seen the Proud Boys as they chose to portray themselves, according to more than a half-dozen current and former federal officials: as mere street brawlers who lacked the organization or ambition of typical bureau targets like neo-Nazis, international terrorists and Mexican drug cartels.
Although law enforcements agencies cannot investigate political groups without reasonable suspicion of a crime, former officials said they were surprised by the Proud Boys’ apparent impunity.
To preempt violence by other far-right groups, federal authorities have often used a tactic known as the “knock and talk.” Agents call or confront group members to warn them away from demonstrations, sometimes reviving past criminal offenses as leverage.
Christopher Wray, the FBI director, told a Senate committee this month that agents had done that in the run-up to a pro-Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 6 that preceded the Capitol assault. They contacted “a handful” of people already under criminal inquiry to discourage attendance, he said.
Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys, said federal agents had called or visited him on eight or so occasions before rallies in recent years. But it was never to pressure him to stay away.
Instead, he said, the agents asked for march routes and other plans in order to separate the Proud Boys from counterprotesters. Other times, agents warned they had picked up threats from the left against him or his associates.
But before the Jan. 6 event, no one contacted the leaders of the Proud Boys, Tarrio said: “They did not reach out to us.”
Career officials in federal enforcement have complained that the Trump administration sought to divert investigative resources toward poorly defined threats from the left, such as the movement of violence-prone activists known as antifa.
Yet the Proud Boys’ belligerence fit the definition of terrorism, other officials said: unlawful violence and intimidation for political aims. Members raised money to travel across state lines to dozens of rallies with the intent of street fighting, at least once explicitly targeting a Muslim community in Upstate New York for harassment — activities that could have justified the scrutiny of federal law enforcement.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment.
The Proud Boys made no effort to hide their anticipation of violence in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6.
“If there ever was a time for there to be a second civil war, it’s now,” Biggs wrote in a blog post shortly after the election. “Buy ammo, clean your guns, get storable food and water.”
Nordean used social media to solicit donations for “protective gear” and “communications equipment,” court papers say. The 100-strong mob behind Biggs and Nordean was one of the largest groups that took part in the attack, and prosecutors said its members spearheaded the violence.
Federal agents have now executed search warrants on Proud Boys in four states. Prosecutors have accused 10 members of crimes, including destruction of government property and threatening a federal officer. They are seeking to link as many as possible in a conspiracy indictment.