Judge awards ‘Proud Boys’ name to vandalized Black church

• A judge has ruled that a Black church gets the naming rights to the Proud Boys. The group has been stripped of its trademark and barred from selling merchandise without the church’s consent.
• The ruling happened after the Proud Boys didn’t pay $2.8 million to the church.
• Trump granted clemency to the Proud Boys leaders for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

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A historic Black church in Washington, D.C., vandalized by members of the Proud Boys, has secured the far-right group’s naming rights. The case stems from a night in December 2020 when Proud Boys tore down and destroyed a Black Lives Matter sign at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church during a rally for President Donald Trump, who had lost reelection.

A judge on Monday, Feb. 3, stripped the group of control over the trademark “Proud Boys” and barred it from selling any merchandise with either its name or its symbols without consent of the church.

This comes after a separate June 2023 ruling when a judge ordered the Proud Boys to pay the church $2.8 million in compensation for the vandalism, which the church never received, according to court documents.

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The new ruling clears the way for the church to take any money the Proud Boys might make by selling merchandise.

How is the church responding?

“If they thought we would be afraid, they were wrong,” the church’s pastor, William H. Lamar IV, told CBS Money. “There are many people with us and who stand with us.”

How is the Proud Boys group responding?

The Proud Boys former leader, Enrique Tarrio, released a statement to The New York Times that said in part, “I fear nothing. With God as my strength and guide, I stand firm.”

Tarrio also criticized the judge’s 2023 decision.

“The judge put a million-dollar settlement on a $40 sign,” Tarrio told The Washington Post.

The judge said replacing the sign and taking steps to protect the church cost around $36,000 after the church called the Proud Boys’ actions “acts of terror” in its lawsuit.

The judge agreed, calling the Proud Boys’ conduct “hateful and overtly racist.”

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What role did the Proud Boys have in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots?

The Proud Boys have a history of violence, with the group’s leaders being sentenced for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

While Tarrio was not in D.C. during the Capitol riot, he was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for seditious conspiracy and obstructing a congressional proceeding. A judge called him the “ultimate leader” of the insurrections.

Trump granted clemency to Tarrio and other leaders of the Proud Boys last month, while also pardoning roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants.