A lieutenant in the Washington, DC, police intelligence branch has been put on administrative leave, as federal officials investigate whether he had improper contacts with the extremist Proud Boys gang.
Washington police chief Robert J Contee II declined to name the officer during a Wednesday news conference, but said the police department, as well as the FBI and Justice Department, are looking into whether the allegations are true.
“I’m very limited in terms of what I can say, I will tell you that this is an ongoing investigation,” he said on Wednesday. “Anything that I say, any deeper than where we are right now, really has the potential to compromise this investigation.”
The police lieutenant under investigation is 22-year veteran Shane Lamond, according to four law enforcement officials who spoke with The Washington Post.
The Independent has contacted Mr Lamond for comment.
The law enforcement officials told the Post they believe the communications under scrutiny are contacts with Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a leading figure among the Proud Boys, an outfit labelled by the FBI as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism.
Mr Tarrio told the Post he didn’t have any improper contacts with the officer, and that he wasn’t an informant for the police.
“He was just a liaison officer for when we held rallies,” Mr Tarrio said. “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.”
Local activists have accused DC police of having an overly cozy relationship to the brawling street gang, accusing them of fist-bumping Proud Boys members, posing for photos with them, and ignoring their acts of violence, which police all deny.
Mr Tarrio was arrested just before the 6 January riot at the US Capitol, on charges that he burned a Black Lives Matter flag stolen from a church, but numerous Proud Boys have been arrested in connection with the insurrection.
Tom Warrick, a former senior Homeland Security official, cautioned against jumping to conclusions in the investigation of the DC police officer, given the often sensitive nature of intelligence work.
"I learned, from direct experience, you have got to let these investigations play themselves out and you have to devote the resources necessary to get to the bottom of these stories," Mr Warrick told WUSA. “Many times, you would get these cases that are really hard, where somebody who you thought was a loyal ally and partner, all of a sudden has unexplained ties to extremist groups. And what we discovered was, it takes diligent investigative work because many times, those contacts with extremist groups turn out to have extremely plausible, logical explanations."
In addition to Proud boys, a significant portion of those arrested in connection with 6 January have current or former police and military experience.
