DC Police Officer Indicted for Sharing Sensitive Jan. 6 Info With Proud Boys

A federal legal indictment in opposition to a Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Division (MPD) officer alleges he illegally shared delicate info with the previous chief of the far proper group the Proud Boys.

Lt. Shane Lamond was arrested on Friday, charged with one depend of obstruction of justice and three counts of creating false statements to investigators. The grand jury indictment expenses stem from his communications with Enrique Tarrio, the previous chief of the Proud Boys, and different members of the white supremacist group, each after a pro-Trump rally in December 2020, when Tarrio stole and burned a “Black Lives Matter” banner, in addition to following the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol constructing.

Tarrio and different members of the Proud Boys had been lately convicted of participating in seditious conspiracy regarding their roles within the Capitol assault.

According to NBC News, earlier than being placed on go away because of the division studying of his communications with Tarrio, Lamond reportedly supervised the intelligence department of MPD, permitting him to have firsthand data of a number of ongoing investigations, together with these involving the Proud Boys.

Lamond and Tarrio had been in communication with one another since at the very least July 2019. Lamond readily shared what he knew about sure actions Tarrio was below investigation for, the indictment shows.

The two shared “at least 500…cloud-based messages,” the indictment says, together with 145 messages on Telegram, an app that enables customers to delete messages as soon as they’ve been despatched and skim.

In a single communication, which got here after Tarrio burned the “Black Lives Matter” banner, Lamond instructed him that he had suggested different MPD officers that the Proud Boys group wasn’t “a racist factor,” and urged that their actions had been no totally different from antifa protesters participating within the burning of a U.S. flag. Such actions are protected by First Amendment speech rights, whereas Tarrio’s motion, the stealing and desecrating of property from a Black church, was seen by many to be a hate crime.

Though convicted for the burning of the banner, Tarrio ultimately did not face any hate crime charges for his actions.

Lamond additionally shared delicate info with Tarrio about investigations into the group’s involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack.

Lamond saved Tarrio knowledgeable, for instance, about whether specific members of the Proud Boys were subjects of inquiry within the days instantly after the violent breach of the constructing, which passed off through the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election. Responding particularly a couple of single member of the group, whom Tarrio frightened was being wanted by investigators, Lamond stated, “Nope, not on our record.”

Lamond additionally indicated, within the days after the assault on the Capitol, that he was loyal to the Proud Boys, even when he couldn’t say so publicly.

“In fact I can’t say it formally, however personally I help you all and don’t need to see your group’s title or fame dragged via the mud,” he said in a message to them on January 8, 2021.

Michael Fanone, a former D.C. police officer who was injured through the January 6 assault, and who’s often lauded for his actions on that day, expressed dismay with Lamond, concerning his alleged actions cited within the indictment.

“This wasn’t simply ineptitude and poor decision-making. There was a degree of betrayal,” Fanone said.

Lamond’s willingness — and clearly, his need — to work together with members of a recognized white supremacist group is a part of a disturbing pattern, which has existed for many years upon a long time, of officers all through the nation espousing comparable disturbing viewpoints. In 2020, the Brennan Middle for Justice launched a report detailing simply how widespread it’s for officers in police stations throughout the U.S. to have ties with explicitly white supremacist teams and much proper militias.

Not solely are police departments saturated with officers expressing such opinions, whether or not publicly or in personal, however departments are doing little or no to deal with the difficulty, too.

“Whereas it’s broadly acknowledged that racist officers subsist inside police departments across the nation, federal, state, and native governments are doing far too little to proactively establish them, report their conduct to prosecutors who may unwittingly depend on their testimony in legal instances, or shield the various communities they’re sworn to serve,” wrote former FBI particular agent Michael German within the Brennan Middle report.

Police reforms, nevertheless, together with diversifying police departments, as some have advocated doing in an effort to deal with racist biases in policing, received’t make issues higher, freelance journalist Reina Sultan wrote in an op-ed for Truthout in 2021.

“The one method to cease police violence is to abolish the police,” Sultan wrote. “As soon as we acknowledge that reality, then we will see that no reform will change what police are and what they had been created to be: protectors of a white supremacist state, of racial capitalism and of personal property.”

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