Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio poses for ‘burning Capitol’ pics before surrendering to DC jail
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio posed for pictures pretending to hold a flame to the US Capitol as he arrived to start his jail term for torching a stolen Black Lives Matter banner.
Tarrio, 37, smiled late Monday as he held up a lighter — with the perspective making it look like the flame was on the Capitol building.
It was close to where he and his supporters set fire to a BLM banner stolen from an historic black church, and where Tarrio was caught with high-capacity firearm magazines days before the Jan. 6 Capitol siege.
Tarrio headed to jail wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Malcolm X brandishing a firearm along with the words, “@FREETHEPROUDBOYS … BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.”
“THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL!” was written on the back of the T-shirt, which Tarrio wore with a black cap featuring the Proud Boys favored yellow-colored Fred Perry logo.
Tarrio then sang the sea-shanty “A Drop of Nelson’s Blood” with a friend as he walked the final steps toward DC Central Detention Facility to start his time.
“Love you, brother,” he told the pal as he arrived at around 9 p.m., which WUSA9 noted was just hours before his final deadline to surrender.
The group’s chairman spent his last few hours of freedom posting images on Telegram, claiming he was feeling “marvelous” — as well as promoting a fundraiser to help support his family while he’s in custody.
“I am not worried and feel at peace with what I must do over the next five months,” he said in a statement of “this next chapter of my life.”
Tarrio was sentenced in August to more than five months in jail for burning a BLM banner stolen from a historic black church in Washington, where he was arrested with the magazines before the Capitol riot.
He admitted to burning the banner, but insisted he did not know it had been taken from a black church.
“Yes, I did burn their property, and I apologized to them,” Tarrio told WUSA9 during his final moments of freedom, insisting his punishment was “strictly political.”
“They wanted to send a message — they wanted to put the bad guy, the villain, in jail. Congratulations — they have,” he said.
His statement on Telegram took aim at the “violent domestic terrorist organization known as Black Lives Matter,” as well as Antifa and the White House.
“While it may be me today who is bearing the brunt of an over-politicized Biden Justice Department that caters to the Marxist mob, tomorrow it will be everyday Americans who they will set their sights on,” he said.
“Make no mistake, they are coming after me in order to intimidate patriots into submission,” he said. “My message to them is simple: don’t give up the ship.
“Keep protesting, keep holding power to account and never back down. They want to kill you, our patriotism, and cause the total erasure of our culture,” he said.
