Sandy MaloneWashington, DC – A DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) lieutenant has been charged with tipping off the leader of the Proud Boys about his impending arrest just before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
On Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced the indictment of 47-year-old MPD Lieutenant Shane Lamond, NBC News reported.
Prosecutors said Lt. Lamond, who was head of MPD’s intelligence division at the time, was in touch with former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio after he was arrested for his part in burning a Black Lives Matter flag on Jan. 4, 2021, The Washington Post reported.
The flag had been stolen weeks earlier from a historic black church.
Tarrio wasn’t in DC for the Capitol riot two days later because a judge had banned him from the city a day earlier, NBC News reported.
The indictment said that Lt. Lamond, a 22-year veteran of the DC police, communicated with Tarrio “at least 500 times using cloud-based messaging services, including Google Voice, Apple iMessages, and Telegram, an encrypted messaging application” between July of 2019 and January of 2021, The Washington Post reported.
Charging documents said the two men exchanged at least 145 messages using a secret chat function on Telegram that caused messages to disappear.
NOW: D.C. Police Lt. Shane Lamond has been indicted on one count of obstruction and three counts of false statements for allegedly tipping off Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and lying about their communications. Story to follow. pic.twitter.com/TwoKLxK8HQ
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) May 19, 2023
The indictment said Lt. Lamond was in communication with Tarrio about the Black Lives Matter banner investigation and advised the Proud Boys leader that he had told another unit within the MPD, trying to convince them that the group wasn’t racist, according to The Washington Post.
“I told them you are made up [of] a lot of Latinos and blacks so not a racist thing,” Lt. Lamond wrote to Tarrio in a message included in the indictment.
“If anything I said it’s political but then I drew attention to the Trump and American flags that were taken by Antifa and set on fire,” the lieutenant wrote. “I said all those would have to be classified as hate crimes too.”
The indictment said Lt. Lamond sent a similar message to a U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) official and said that he’d told his colleagues that if Tarrio was charged with a hate crime, they’d have to charge what he called “Antifa hate crimes,” NBC News reported.
Politically-motivated attacks are not considered a federal hate crime, but DC law permits sentencing enhancement if a locally-charged crime can be proven to be based on the “political affiliation of a victim.”
24 yr veteran @DCPoliceDept charged with giving @ProudBoysUS leader confidential police info on investigation into Proud Boys. Lt Shane Lamond has been on administrative leave since Feb 2022. @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/hbruwAFECT
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) May 19, 2023
Charging documents said Lt. Lamond continued to communicate with Tarrio after Jan. 6, 2021, NBC News reported.
Tarrio told Lt. Lamond he thought he “could have stopped this whole thing,” referring to the Capitol riot, according to the indictment.
Lt. Lamond wrote to Tarrio on Jan. 8, 2021 that he hoped that none of the Proud Boys would be arrested, according to the complaint.
“Of course I can’t say it officially, but personally I support you all and don’t want to see your group’s name or reputation dragged through the mud,” the lieutenant wrote.
Lt. Lamond was indicted on one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements, The Washington Post reported.
Prosecutors said the law enforcement official is scheduled for arraignment on May 19 in U.S. District Court in DC.
Holly Matkin
