Fired FBI Agents Say They Prevented 'Washington Massacre'

Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture.

• The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with President Trump, the AP reports. But they say their decision to take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political expression.

• The lawsuit says the agents were assigned to patrol the nation's capital during a period of civil unrest prompted by Floyd's death. Lacking protective gear or extensive training in crowd control, the agents became outnumbered by hostile crowds they encountered and decided to kneel to the ground in hopes of defusing the tension, the lawsuit said. The tactic worked, the lawsuit asserts—the crowds dispersed, no shots were fired and the agents "saved American lives" that day.
• "Plaintiffs were performing their duties as FBI Special Agents, employing reasonable de-escalation to prevent a potentially deadly confrontation with American citizens: a Washington Massacre that could have rivaled the Boston Massacre in 1770," the lawsuit says.

• After photographs emerged of the agents taking a knee, the FBI conducted an internal review, with the then-deputy director determining that the agents had no political motive and should not be punished. The Justice Department inspector general reached a similar conclusion and faulted the department for having put the agents in a precarious situation that day, the lawsuit says.
• It was only after Patel took over the bureau in February that the FBI took a different posture. Multiple agents were removed from supervisory positions last spring and a fresh disciplinary inquiry was launched that resulted in the agents being interviewed about their actions. That internal process was still pending when the agents in September received terse letters telling them they were being terminated because of "unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government."
• Plaintiffs demonstrated tactical intelligence in choosing between deadly force—the only force available to them as a practical matter, given their lack of adequate crowd control equipment—and a less-than-lethal response that would save lives and keep order," the lawsuit says. "The Special Agents selected the option that prevented casualties while maintaining their law enforcement mission. Each Plaintiff kneeled for apolitical tactical reasons to defuse a volatile situation, not as an expressive political act."
• In addition to seeking reinstatement, the lawsuit also asks for a court judgment declaring the firings as unconstitutional, backpay and other monetary damages and an expungement of personnel files related to the terminations.