FBI agents fired for kneeling at racial justice protest sue to win jobs back | FBI

Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington have filed a lawsuit to get their jobs back, saying their actions were intended to deescalate a volatile situation and were not a political gesture.

The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired by FBI director Kash Patel in September because they were perceived to have no political ties to Donald Trump. But they say their decision to kneel on June 4, 2020, days after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, was misinterpreted as political expression.

The lawsuit says the agents were assigned to patrol the nation’s capital during a period of civil unrest sparked by Floyd’s death. Lacking protective equipment or extensive training in crowd control, the agents were outnumbered by the hostile crowds they encountered and decided to kneel on the ground in hopes of deescalating tensions, the lawsuit said. The lawsuit argues that the tactic worked; The crowd dispersed, no shots were fired, and the agents “saved American lives” that day.

“Plaintiffs were performing their duties as FBI special agents and reasonably de-escalating tensions to prevent a potentially deadly confrontation with American citizens: a Washington Massacre that would rival the Boston Massacre of 1770,” the lawsuit filed by Washington Litigation Group attorneys alleges.

The FBI declined to comment.

The case, in federal court in Washington, represents the latest court challenge to the personnel purges that have plagued the FBI, targeting both top supervisors and authorized agents as Patel works to reshape the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. In addition to the kneeling agents, other employees who have been dismissed in recent months also worked on investigations involving Trump or his allies, and in one case, hung an LGBTQ+ flag in the work area.

After photos of the agents kneeling surfaced, the FBI conducted an internal review, and the deputy director at the time determined that the agents had no political motivation and should not be punished. The justice department’s inspector general reached a similar conclusion and expressed concerns that the department had placed agents in a dangerous situation that day, the lawsuit says.

It was only after Patel took over the bureau in February that the FBI took a different stance.

Last spring, scores of kneeling agents were removed from their supervisory positions and a new disciplinary hearing was launched, allowing agents to be questioned about their actions. This internal process was still pending in September when agents received brief letters informing them that they had been terminated for “lack of impartiality and unprofessional conduct in the performance of duties leading to the political weaponization of the government.”

“Defendants rejected plaintiffs in a partisan effort to retaliate against FBI employees they perceived to be sympathetic to President Trump’s political opponents,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs are among about 22 agents from different teams in Washington. The lawsuit alleges the agents were thrust into a chaotic scene, where the crowd recognized them from the FBI and “intentionally” pushed toward them, becoming “increasingly agitated” and yelling and gesturing at them. Some in the crowd began chanting “take a knee”; The move was taken at the time as a sign of solidarity with Floyd, who was pinned to the pavement by a police officer with a knee on his neck, and with the protest movement more generally.

The agents closest to the crowd were the first to kneel. After the crowd’s attention turned to the remaining agents standing, other FBI employees followed suit and knelt, acknowledging that this was “the most tactically sound means to prevent violence and maintain order.” The crowd continued on its way.

“Plaintiffs demonstrated tactical acumen by choosing between lethal force, which was the only force available to them as a practical matter, given their lack of adequate crowd control equipment, and a nonlethal response that would save lives and maintain order,” the plaintiff says. “The special agents chose the option that prevented casualties while continuing their law enforcement duties. Each Plaintiff took a knee for apolitical tactical reasons to defuse a volatile situation, not as a meaningful political action.”

In addition to the request for reinstatement, the lawsuit also requests a court ruling that the dismissals are unconstitutional, back pay and other monetary damages, and the deletion of personnel files related to the dismissals.