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.
Sometimes really stupid things happen because of the most obvious reasons......maybe.
So, destruction of someone esle’s property means they can sue for a Million bucks? Or, does it only applies to flags?
We’ve always had idiots here
Lesson learned: Next time, bring your own BLM flag to burn.
Problem solved.
I was waiting...
It may. Defendants didn’t appear to defend themselves.
If you read some of his statements and other rulings and associations, you will find that he is a flaming a— liberal leftist.
Failure to appear does not invalidate 8th ammendment rights.
This will be lowered on appeal, the ridiculousness of the ruling may get the entire thing nullified.
Well, in that case, I suppose him (?) being a commie rat is the most obvious reason.. :)
Well, you do the deed, you pay the piper.
I guess burning the BLM flag isn’t covered under “free speech”. /sarc
The name Kravitz rings a leftist warning in my memory. As I recall, he is one of the worst leftist judges in DC, possibly funded, in part, by something connected to KAPO George Soros/organizations.
His monetary fine will be thrown out on appeal.
Don’t recall any BLM/Antifa people being fined a million dollars for their burning of the St. John’s Church attached building in 2020. Didn’t even recall anyone being arrested for it despite there being scores if not hundreds of police right nearby (I.e. Lafayette Park and something called the White House).
“$36,000”
This generally represents how all such political organization scams work.
1) establish left wing group.
2) establish bank account for the entity.
3) have a comrade open a business that provides a “service” (such as flag making).
4) tax exempt entity rakes in donations.
4) tax exempt entity buys “supplies” that the comrade radically overcharges for.
5) comrades buy nice houses for themselves.
They looted the upscale mall near my apartment in a Seattle suburb during the George Floyd riots.
Nordstrom department store lost $1.1 million just in luxury cosmetics.
The employee who leaked that number to the press was fired.
Three years later, we still have no idea how much was stolen in total - which included Tiffany, which told its armed guards to stand down.
Why didn’t the defendants show up in court? When there’s not even an attempt at a defense, the plaintiff gets a default judgment, typically with at least most of what they asked for.
It’s free speech if it’s YOURS.
But you can burn the American flag no problem.
In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz cited the “emotional trauma” inflicted on the church members due to the incident.
Emotional trauma - give me an f-ing break.
No, that is a much different group.
The flag wasn’t his property to burn and he had to trespass to get to it, and if it is considered “speech” he was violating their right to free speech.
Now, if he had made or bought a BLM flag and burned that, then he would be exercising his free speech and wouldn’t be violating the property rights of others.
What he did was in the spirit of an anarchist, not a conservative.
That doesn’t mean the judge was right about the remedy.
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