© AP Photo/Allison DinnerIn this Sept. 26, 2020, file photo, Proud Boys leader Henry "Enrique" Tarrio wears a hat that says The War Boys during a rally in Portland, Ore. The leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group, Tarrio, was arrested Tuesday on a conspiracy charge for his suspected role in a coordinated attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
Proud Boys former chairman Henry "Enrique" Tarrio wasn't there when the riot erupted on Jan. 6, 2021. Police had arrested Tarrio in Washington two days before the riot and charged him with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. The day before the Capitol was attacked, a judge ordered Tarrio to stay out of Washington. He later served a five-month sentence in that case.
The new riot-related charges are among the most serious filed so far, but they aren't the first of their kind. Eleven members or associates of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia group, including its founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, were charged on Jan. 12 with seditious conspiracy in the Capitol attack.
More than three dozen people charged in the Capitol siege have been identified by federal authorities as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates.
A New York man pleaded guilty in December to storming the U.S. Capitol with fellow Proud Boys members. Matthew Greene was the first Proud Boys member to publicly plead guilty to conspiring with other members to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. Greene agreed to cooperate with authorities.
On the morning of Jan. 6, Proud Boys members met at the Washington Monument and marched to the Capitol before then-President Donald Trump finished speaking to thousands of supporters near the White House.
Just before Congress convened a joint session to certify the election results, a group of Proud Boys followed a crowd of people who breached barriers at a pedestrian entrance to the Capitol grounds, an indictment says. Several Proud Boys also entered the Capitol building itself after the mob smashed windows and forced open doors.
Prosecutors have said the Proud Boys arranged for members to communicate using specific frequencies on Baofeng radios. The Chinese-made devices can be programmed for use on hundreds of frequencies, making them difficult for outsiders to eavesdrop.
In December, a federal judge refused to dismiss an earlier indictment charging four alleged leaders of the far-right Proud Boys with conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly rejected defense attorneys' arguments that the four men — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Charles Donohoe — were charged with conduct that is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.
Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Donohoe remain jailed while awaiting a trial scheduled for May.
Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president and member of the group's national "Elders Council." Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, is a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia. Donohoe, of Kernersville, North Carolina, also served as president of his local chapter, according to the indictment.
Tarrio didn't immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on his arrest and indictment.
Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men's club for "Western chauvinists." Its members frequently have brawled with antifascist activists at rallies and protests. Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for labeling it as a hate group.
What questions would you ask? Were FBI agents/informants within this organization promoting violence? Were these people welcomed into the capitol? Who were the actual people who broke windows, etc, and were they charged?