A D.C. police officer was not too long ago taken into custody by the FBI for allegedly offering delicate data to the Proud Boys chief. The incident occurred when {a partially} black-clad mob, together with members of the Proud Boys, stormed the U.S. Capitol constructing on the sixth of January.
The officer, whose id stays undisclosed, is going through prices of offering “assist and help” to a felony group, making a false assertion, and obstruction of justice. Stories counsel that the officer has been below investigation since January.
The act of leaking delicate data to extremist teams is a severe offense. The Proud Boys are a far-right group that has been identified to advocate for white nationalism and has a historical past of violent confrontations. Members of the group have been implicated in quite a few violent incidents in recent times, together with the U.S. Capitol riot.
The D.C. police division has expressed its dedication to making sure that the officer’s alleged actions are totally investigated and applicable motion is taken. The division has additionally acknowledged that it has a zero-tolerance coverage in the direction of officers who violate the integrity of regulation enforcement by offering privileged data to unauthorized third-party individuals.
Federal prosecutors unsealed prices on Friday towards a veteran police officer in Washington, accusing him of obstructing justice by leaking regulation enforcement data to Enrique Tarrio, the previous chief of the Proud Boys.
Prosecutors say that the officer, Shane Lamond, 47, informed Mr. Tarrio that he wouldn’t face hate crime prices after a bunch of Proud Boys below his command burned a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church in Washington after a pro-Trump rally within the metropolis in December 2020. The episode happened weeks earlier than the far-right group performed a central function within the Capitol assault on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Lamond, who labored as an intelligence skilled for the Metropolitan Police Division, was suspended from his job as an investigation into his ties to Mr. Tarrio moved ahead. He additionally gave Mr. Tarrio advance discover that he could be arrested in reference to the banner-burning episode in early January 2021 as he returned to Washington for the occasions of Jan. 6.
Mark E. Schamel, a lawyer for Mr. Lamond, declined to touch upon the costs.
Prosecutors started analyzing Mr. Lamond and Mr. Tarrio’s relationship after the Capitol assault, when a bunch of about 200 Proud Boys helped lead a pro-Trump mob in breaching barricades and finally disrupting the congressional certification of the 2020 election outcomes.
Mr. Tarrio and three of his lieutenants had been convicted this month of seditious conspiracy in reference to the assault.
In keeping with an indictment filed towards Mr. Lamond in Federal District Courtroom in Washington, Mr. Tarrio supplied him details about the Proud Boys’ plans to descend on Washington on Jan. 6. In a textual content to Mr. Lamond on Dec. 19, 2020 — the identical day President Donald J. Trump posted a tweet summoning his followers to the town for what he known as a “wild” protest — Mr. Tarrio mentioned that the Proud Boys’ participation within the Jan. 6 occasion could be “extraordinarily small” and that members of the group wouldn’t be carrying their conventional black-and-yellow uniforms.
The 2 males had been involved since July 2019 and corresponded frequently after the 2020 election, with Mr. Tarrio typically offering discover about plans to carry his group to rallies in assist of Mr. Trump. Mr. Lamond “frequently supplied delicate regulation enforcement data” in return, the indictment mentioned, together with steerage about their actions and people of anti-Trump protesters in Washington.
The exchanges, typically via encrypted messaging, counsel the extent to which Mr. Tarrio and different Proud Boys leaders cultivated relationships with members of regulation enforcement, particularly in cities the place they had been planning rallies.
Even after Jan. 6, Mr. Tarrio and Mr. Lamond continued to speak in regards to the authorized fallout from the riot, exchanging reactions to the violence and buying and selling details about the bigger investigation. Texts included within the indictment present that Mr. Tarrio, who had additionally handed alongside data to the F.B.I. and Florida cops previously, appeared to have saved a equally shut and cooperative relationship with Mr. Lamond.
“I feel I might have stopped this entire factor,” Mr. Tarrio texted on Jan. 7, earlier than providing to assist the police arrest somebody in reference to the riot.
“Let me know if she’s in your listing,” Mr. Tarrio wrote. “I’ll have her flip herself in.”
“Seems just like the feds are locking folks up for rioting on the Capitol,” Mr. Lamond texted again on Jan. 8. “I hope none of your guys had been amongst them.”
Along with obstructing the investigation into Mr. Tarrio, Mr. Lamond had intentionally misrepresented the conversations to investigators, prosecutors mentioned. Mr. Lamond described the exchanges as “one-sided” and as routine intelligence-gathering when he had typically reached out to Mr. Tarrio with privileged particulars about Metropolitan Police Division actions.
Legal professionals for Mr. Tarrio sought to name Mr. Lamond a protection witness on the sedition trial, however Mr. Schamel informed them that if Mr. Lamond had been known as to testify, he would invoke his Fifth Modification proper towards self-incrimination. Mr. Tarrio’s authorized group then tried to have Decide Timothy J. Kelly confer immunity on Mr. Lamond and compel him to take stand, however the choose refused to take action.
Unable to acquire Mr. Lamond’s dwell testimony, Mr. Tarrio’s attorneys selected to introduce a number of of the textual content messages the 2 males exchanged in an effort to point out that they had been in shut contact with one another within the run-up not solely to Jan. 6 but in addition to different pro-Trump occasions in Washington that preceded it.
“I’m shocked and disgusted to see that the federal government used sure data within the indictment towards Lt. Shane Lamond that was not allowed to be launched in our trial,” mentioned Nayib Hassan, a lawyer for Mr. Tarrio.
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