A group of FBI agents who were photographed kneeling during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests were fired on Friday, according to a new report.
Sources speaking to the Associated Press said that around 20 agents were fired, and a third source confirmed the firings to the outlet.
The firings come after the agents were reportedly reassigned in response to the photograph showing them kneeling.
The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests were ignited after footage showing the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin spread on social media. Floyd’s brutal death at the hands of a police officer was viewed by many protesters as an especially egregious example of racial bias in law enforcement and of unchecked state aggression toward Black people.
Protests spread across the country, and President Donald Trump — then as now — described demonstrators as Antifa and domestic terrorists.
One of the symbols of the protest was kneeling, especially during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.
The kneeling incident involving the fired FBI agents occurred in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2020, which was the height of the Black Lives Matter protests.
The FBI Agents Association issued a statement to CNN criticizing FBI Director Kash Patel’s decision to fire the agents.
“Patel’s dangerous new pattern of actions are weakening the Bureau because they eliminate valuable expertise and damage trust between leadership and the workforce, and make it harder to recruit and retain skilled agents—ultimately putting our nation at greater risk,” the organization said.
At the time of the incident, Trump ordered then-Attorney General Bill Barr to drive protesters off the streets and demanded that the FBI and other federal agencies deploy its agents to help protect federal buildings and engage in crowd control.
FBI agents are not trained for crowd control. Leadership at the agency pushed back against Barr but ultimately complied with Trump’s orders and directed its agents to help stomp out the protests.
Some of the agents sent to the streets to patrol took kneeled in an attempt to help de-escalate tensions in the area.
Then-FBI Director Chris Wray examined the photos after the fact and determined that, considering the context of the situation, none of the agency’s policies had been violated.
Earlier this year, with Patel at the head of the agency, the photos were revisited and the agents involved were reassigned prior to their firing.
Trump ordered the Justice Department to review the conduct of more than 1,500 agents who worked on cases involving the president and his allies. The agency’s former acting director, Brian Driscoll, its former assistant director in Washington’s field office Steven Jensen, and Spencer Evans, former special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office, have all been fired in recent weeks.
Those three agents have sued Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi over their firings, arguing they were let go only to appease Trump.
The Independent has requested comment from the FBI.
