Array
Members of the Proud Boys were ordered Saturday to pay over $1 million for violently tearing down and burning a “Black Lives Matter” sign posted outside a predominantly black church in Washington, DC, in 2020.
The extremist group and its leaders were also barred from coming near the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church or making threats or defamatory remarks against it or its pastor for five years, Superior Court Associated Judge Neal A. Kravitz ruled.
Kravitz called the hate-fueled demonstration an “attack” on the Metropolitan AME that “resulted from a highly orchestrated set of events focused on the Proud Boys’ guiding principles: white supremacy and violence.”
The group must pay the church $1.03 million for their “hateful and overtly racist” conduct, Kravitz said.
The ruling was a default judgment issued after the Proud Boys failed to show up in court to fight the case.
The ruling comes years after the Metropolitan AME sued the neo-fascist group, alleging they violated DC and federal law by trespassing and destroying religious property in a bias-related conspiracy.
