NYT: Cops “Shrugged Off” Proud Boys Until Too Late

The New York Times reports:

A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.

Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish.

Read the full article. Both Proud Boys mentioned above are now charged in the Capitol riot.

“Critics argued that such arrests were rare because police generally favored the Proud Boys over their left-leaning opponents.” https://t.co/yjWQu8K5yx

— Amy Siskind ?️‍? (@Amy_Siskind) March 14, 2021

“They committed violence in public, used videos of that violence to promote themselves for other rallies and then traveled across the country to engage in violence again. How that didn’t attract F.B.I. attention is hard for me to understand.” https://t.co/5VMKnfZqkU

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) March 14, 2021

Joseph Biggs and Ethan Nordean are major targets in a federal investigation of the Capitol riot. But a look into their histories shows law enforcement agencies were aware of them and their fellow Proud Boys long before the riot. So why did no one intervene?https://t.co/cZ4e3ykmaI

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 14, 2021