New York
Enrique Tarrio, Pardoned by Trump, Helped Initiate Capitol Riot
By including Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, in his extraordinary pardons for the events of Jan. 6, 2021, President Trump granted clemency on Monday to a man whom prosecutors have described as a savvy, street-fighting extremist who helped his compatriots in “Trump’s army” initiate an assault on the Capitol.
Mr. Tarrio, 42, was serving a 22-year prison term after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and other felonies for his role in the Capitol attack. His was the longest sentence handed down against any of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with Jan. 6.
A representative for Mr. Tarrio said he had been released from a federal prison in Louisiana and was expected to return to Miami, his hometown, on Tuesday afternoon.
Even before Jan. 6, Mr. Tarrio was among the best-known far-right figures in the country, having been involved in violent protests going back to the deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. Rarely seen without his sunglasses and baseball cap, he took control of the Proud Boys the next year after the group’s founder, Gavin McInnes, stepped aside.
But Mr. Tarrio is arguably better known for the part he played in supporting Mr. Trump during the 2020 election — and in the chaotic months after he lost the race. The Proud Boys were thrust into the heart of that campaign two months before Election Day when Mr. Trump, at one of the presidential debates, called out the group by name, telling its members to “stand back and stand by.”
Mr. Tarrio responded immediately on social media, “Standing by, sir.”
In December of that year, Mr. Tarrio responded to a message that Mr. Trump himself posted on social media, summoning his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6 for what he said would be a “wild” protest. The day after, Mr. Tarrio established a crew of “hand-selected members” for the rally, court papers said, known within the Proud Boys as the Ministry of Self-Defense.
During the trial of Mr. Tarrio and four other Proud Boys, federal prosecutors described how the group under his control was “thirsting for violence and organizing for action” after Mr. Trump lost the election and ultimately fought at the Capitol “to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”
Mr. Tarrio was not in Washington on Jan. 6. He had been kicked out of the city days earlier by a local judge presiding over separate criminal charges brought against him for vandalizing a Black church after an earlier pro-Trump rally. But prosecutors say that he and other members of his group frenetically exchanged text messages while the mob, with the Proud Boys in the lead, overran the Capitol.
Ultimately, video clips of the attack showed that the Proud Boys were instrumental in encouraging other rioters to confront the police or in confronting officers themselves. Members of the group took part in several breaches of police lines and were at the forefront of violence almost the entire day.
When he was sentenced in Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Tarrio sought to portray himself as humbled by the events of Jan. 6, apologizing for his role in the riot and calling it a “national embarrassment.”
“I am not a political zealot,” he said.
A few months before he went on trial, he met secretly with federal prosecutors who, by his own account, offered him leniency if he could corroborate their theory that he had been in touch with Mr. Trump in the run-up to Jan. 6 through at least three intermediaries.
Mr. Tarrio said he told the prosecutors they were wrong — a position that, regardless of its veracity, would have surely pleased Mr. Trump when it was made public.
It remains unclear what Mr. Tarrio’s release might mean for the future of the Proud Boys. He is a polarizing figure in the group, beloved by some members and despised and distrusted by others, including many from Miami, his hometown.
Moreover, the organization dismantled its national leadership and largely retreated from high-profile demonstrations after Jan. 6, which led to the arrest and prosecution of dozens of its members. While some chapters of the Proud Boys used violent language on their online accounts during the 2024 campaign, the group was barely present on the street or at rallies in support of Mr. Trump.
‘Part of the job’
Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.
He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.
Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”
He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.
A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.
But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.
Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.
Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.
And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.
After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.
But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.
The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.
His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.
M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.
In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.
“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.
Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.
A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.
An Uptick in Subway Strikes
San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.
Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.
The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.
But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.
“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”
new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
transcript
transcript
Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.
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[chanting] “ICE out of New York.”
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