A D.C. police lieutenant in the intelligence branch has been put on leave amid an investigation into alleged improper contacts with a prominent member of the extremist group Proud Boys, according to four law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case.
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The officials identified the officer as Shane Lamond, a 22-year veteran. Law enforcement officials said there is evidence suggesting communications between Lamond and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who described himself as the former chairman of the group.
Efforts to reach Lamond on Wednesday evening were not successful.
Speaking at a news conference, D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said only that a member of the department had been placed on administrative leave during an “ongoing investigation” being conducted by his department, the FBI and the Department of Justice.
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Contee declined to answer questions in more detail, saying allegations had not been proved and that he did not want to compromise the investigation. The chief said he is committed to full transparency and accountability.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, would not describe the nature of the alleged contacts between Lamond and Tarrio or how the inquiry began. Contee said he was concerned enough by the allegation to take administrative action.
Tarrio, reached by phone, described his contacts with Lamond as professional. He said he provided Lamond or other police officials advance notice when the Proud Boys planned to rally or march in the District.
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But Tarrio also said that during marches, Lamond would tell him the location of counterdemonstrators. Tarrio said that was so his group could avoid conflict, though after one violent night of demonstrations, police accused the Proud Boys of roaming the city looking for and instigating fights, targeting people they believed identified as antifa, or antifascists.
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“He was just a liaison officer for when we held rallies,” Tarrio said of Lamond. He denied their relationship extended beyond that and said he is not a confidential informant for anyone on the D.C. police force.
“They’re just trying to get anybody at this point,” Tarrio said of investigators. “I only told him, ‘We’re coming into town and we’re going to hold this protest.’ That’s as far as the relationship went.”
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Activists have long complained that D.C. police enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Proud Boys, pointing to fist-bumps seen between members, officers posing for photos with Proud Boys and some police turning away as members destroyed Black Lives Matters signs.
Police have denied those accusations, saying any sign of cooperation was merely officers doing their best to keep warring sides apart.
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Tarrio was not at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, but his group has become a key focus of the FBI’s investigation into it.
Tarrio was arrested two days before the attack on the Capitol on charges he burned a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a church during a previous protest in the District. He was released last month after serving five months in jail.
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The court had ordered him to stay out of the city as his case was pending.
FBI probes possible connections between extremist groups at heart of Capitol violence
Dozens of people linked to the Proud Boys have been arrested in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack. Tarrio’s conduct is also under review as part of the insurrection probe, law enforcement officials have said.
Any suggestion that law enforcement acted inappropriately in handling sources tied to the Jan. 6 attack probably would be seized upon by Republicans in Congress and elsewhere, who have repeatedly suggested that the FBI, either through undercover agents, informants or both, egged on violence.
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At a hearing last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) lambasted federal officials for not answering questions about informants, and pressed the head of the FBI’s national security branch, Jill Sanborn, to say whether the federal government “deliberately encouraged illegal violent conduct on January 6th.” She answered, “Not to my knowledge, sir.”
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While nothing currently known about the Lamond case suggests recent interactions between Tarrio and the FBI, court records show that years ago he was a prolific cooperator with federal and local law enforcement in South Florida — cooperation that grew out of a 2012 fraud case in which he pleaded guilty to helping sell stolen goods.
Tarrio has complained about being publicly identified as a government informant, posting an online screed last year criticizing government and the media for disclosing his past activities and arguing that his cooperation was done with the full knowledge and participation of his co-defendants, writing: “They have proven that if you cooperate with the US government they will hang you out to dry... So my question is... is it worth it? That I leave up to y’all to decide.”
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At a 2014 hearing in the fraud case, a prosecutor described Tarrio as “probably the most cooperative from day one. From day one, he was the one who wanted to talk to law enforcement, wanted to clear his name, wanted to straighten this out so that he could move on with his life.”
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The prosecutor told the court that Tarrio’s cooperation helped federal agents prosecute 13 others and aided local police with a number of undercover drug investigations.
Jeffrey Feiler, Tarrio’s defense attorney at the time, said Tarrio’s broad cooperation allowed law enforcement to successfully raid multiple marijuana grow houses and seize 100 pounds of the drug. He said Tarrio also “worked in an undercover capacity in a case involving information pertaining to an illegal immigrant smuggling ring and, again at his own risk, in an undercover role met and negotiated to pay $11,000 to members of that ring to bring in fictitious family members of his from another country.”
Magda Jean-Louis and Clarence Williams contributed to this report.