Posted on 07/05/2023 9:56:36 AM PDT by Morgana
Last week a judge decreed that the Proud Boy must pay a hefty $1.03 million to a historic Black church in Washington, D.C. The reason? In December 2020, amid a tumultuous protest surrounding the U.S. presidential election, Proud Boys members desecrated and incinerated a Black Lives Matter (BLM) banner from the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a revered landmark in the nation’s capital.
In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz cited the “emotional trauma” inflicted on the church members due to the incident. He put forth a firm edict, effectively barring the Proud Boys from venturing near Metropolitan AME for the next half-decade and sternly prohibiting them from uttering disparaging remarks or threats against the church and its leaders.
Significantly, this ruling was a default judgment, given the conspicuous absence of the defendants in the courtroom.
Even though the cost to replace the flag totaled around $36,600, the judge emphasized that “compensatory damages alone will not address the defendants’ reprehensible conduct or the extraordinary emotional trauma suffered by the church and its congregants” and added on another million dollars, writing:
To the members of the church, the burning of the Black Lives Matter sign represented a complete negation of their right to worship as they please and, more fundamentally, to participate fully in the life of the community—and forced them to harken back to the long and painful history of white supremacists committing wanton acts of violence against Black churches.
Am I correct?
I sure hope they fight this!
How about “No” and flag burning was ruled to be “free speech” judge.
There really doesn’t seem to be a formal organization around Proud Boys, from what I understand.
Proud boys? You mean khaki clad undercover operatives for the DOH-j?
A default judgment against an organization with no assets.
“Even though the cost to replace the flag totaled around $36,600 . . .”
Seems like an expensive flag. Did they burn the church down too?
What's the most anyone has ever been fined for vandalism at a church that's not a revered black church?
You can’t burn someone else’s flag.
Well okay I agree they need to pay for the flag if it was not their property but how can a flag cost millions of dollars?
Neal Kravitz is not a judge, he is a leftist activist in a black robe. His kind will be the cause of our next civil war if it ever comes.
“ Even though the cost to replace the flag totaled around $36,600, ”
??? What is is made of?
And yes, you can burn any flag as long as it belongs to you. It is illegal to burn someone else’s flag. Burn BLM and rainbow flags all day long for all I care.
The could would go after the assets of each individual member.
I would be interested in finding out if the prosecutor even notified the Proud Boys leadership and that’s why nobody showed up
I’m sorry to say that while the judge obviously fined them so large a sum due to his own personal bias, he was correct in assessing a fine to begin with. They did steal someone else’s flag, they did filch it off of someone else’s property, and then burned it on top of that. That’s just not right.
If they wanted to show their displeasure with the BLM flag by burning it or however, they should have bought or made one of their own to destroy.
I wonder which fine is greater — burning an LGBTQ flag or a BLM flag? U.S. flag = $0.00.
“$36,000 for a flag? Made of the most expensive silk?”
Hand-woven by 6 of the most talented black widow spiders. They sure are talented, and that does come with a high cost.
Different flag
It is. However, the Proud Boys burned the Church’s flag, not their flag. Big difference.
So this judge says burning a BLM flag is not good. Wonder what his thoughts are about burning the American flag?
“Emotional trauma”-what, did they have flashbacks to cross burning which they never experienced? Just asking for a friend.
Just curious.
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