US far-right Proud Boys leader sentenced to jail for burning BLM banner and having rifle magazine

Enrique Tarrio, a leader of the right-wing extremist group the Proud Boys, has been sentenced to five months in prison for setting a Black Lives Matter banner on fire in Washington as part of protests supporting former president Donald Trump.

"Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio, 37, of Miami, Florida, was sentenced today to a total of 155 days of incarceration on charges stemming from two cases, including one involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a historically prominent Black church in downtown Washington," the Justice Department said in a release.

He was charged with destruction of property, due in part to a photograph he posted on social media posing with the banner and a lighter in his hand.

Judge Harold L. Cushenberry Jr. of DC Superior Court handed down the sentence on Monday.

“This court must respect the right of any citizen to peacefully assemble, protest, and make his or her views known on issues,” Cushenberry said at the sentencing.

“But Mr. Tarrio's conduct in these criminal cases vindicate none of these democratic values. Instead, Mr. Tarrio's actions betrayed them.”

The pastor of the church from which Tarrio took the Black Lives Matter banner said at Monday’s sentencing hearing that its burning “sparked feelings of hurt, anger, confusion.”

The far-right leader was arrested in January when he arrived in Washington two days before the Jan. 6 deadly riot at the US Capitol by the Trump supporters.

The Justice Department said officers recovered two high-capacity firearms magazines from Tarrio’s bookbag during a search conducted at the time of his arrest in Washington on January 4.

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The January 6 uprising, which saw the Trump supporters, including members of violent right wing militia groups like the Proud Boys, invade the halls of the US legislature to stop its certification of Joe Biden as presidential election winner over Trump.

Tarrio was among a group of Proud Boys during a demonstration in Washington on Dec. 12, 2020, who stole a Black Lives Matter banner from a church. Tarrio then set it on fire, according to court documents.

The Proud Boys leader had organized rallies for Trump and against the Black Lives Matter racial justice protests that had swept the United States in 2020 following US police killings and shootings of African Americans.

"We are looked at almost like soldiers of the right wing," said Tarrio in a podcast in the runup to January 6. "This stuff is real. We are in a war."

Experts blame Trump's racist rhetoric for the toxic tide of nationalism and racism that has swept the United States in recent years, with many minority groups, in particular African Americans and Asian Americans, seeing themselves come under attack by far-right Americans. 

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