Sept. 27 (UPI) — At least 15 FBI agents who were photographed while kneeling during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in Washington have been fired for a “lack of judgment.”
The agents were tasked with protecting federal buildings in the nation’s capital amid the BLM protests that occurred following the death of George Floyd. 46, while he was being arrested in Minneapolis in 2020, according to NBC News.
The fired agents received their termination notices on Friday, NPR reported.
A 2024 Department of Justice review regarding the matter shows many of the agents assigned to protect federal buildings said they lacked training in dealing with civil unrest and kneeled as a way to de-escalate the situation when confronted by protesters.
Officials with the FBI Agents Association condemned the firings and accused FBI Director Kash Patel of violating federal law and ignoring the rights of the fired agents.
“Leaders uphold the law, they don’t repeatedly break it,” the FBI Agents Association said in a statement.
“Patel’s dangerous new pattern of actions [is] weakening the [FBI] because they eliminate valuable expertise and damage trust between leadership and the workforce,” association officials added.
They said the firings also make it harder to recruit new agents and retain experienced and skilled agents, which puts the nation at greater risk of criminal activity and domestic terrorism.
The firings occurred as Patel has led a purge of FBI agents who investigated President Donald Trump for retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and who investigated individuals for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protest.
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