Proud Boys’ Tarrio plotted to keep Trump in power. But Miami is guilty, too | Opinion

Miami’s homegrown extremist, former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, wanted a “revolution.” Now, what he should get is a lot of years in the slammer for trying to violently overthrow the government in the name of Donald Trump.

To borrow a phrase from singer Lizzo, it’s about damn time.

The conviction Thursday of the ex-leader of the far-right group and three other members marks the third successful prosecution for the feds on seditious conspiracy charges stemming from the violent and deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

On the one-year anniversary of the attack, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the attack wasn’t an insurrection because, “Nobody has been charged with that.” Well, now they have. And been convicted.

Now, can we finally toss the other Proud Boys from the local GOP executive committee, where this hate group has wormed its way in? And fully repudiate this foul organization in Miami, where it had gained a hold in the Republican Party?

Tarrio, it’s clear, was one of the architects of the insurrection. His sentence could be as long as 20 years on the conspiracy conviction alone. (Other convictions for Tarrio and his associates included obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging their duties, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and destruction of government property with value of over $1,000.)

And yet it’s not like we couldn’t see this coming. Tarrio was a troubled individual for years, well known in Miami for parading around in his paramilitary outfits with a bullhorn, sometimes at Versailles restaurant, surrounded by other black-shirted men, pushing his extremist views from behind dark sunglasses and looking for a fight.

Mob intimidation

Remember back in 2018, when Tarrio turned up at the Miami campaign headquarters of congressional candidate Donna Shalala when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was visiting?

As the GOP crowd pounded on the door, he screamed expletives and yelled: “Open up, it’s the Proud Boys in here.” It should be noted that Kevin Marino Cabrera, at one time Florida director for “Donald J. Trump for President” and the Republican National Committee, also participated in this mob thuggery. He now represents District 6 on the Miami-Dade Commission.

“Sure,” he shruggingly told the Editorial Board during his candidate interview when asked if he took part in the event, though he did his best to evade the question at first. He added that he disavowed the Proud Boys and other hate groups.

Tarrio likes to claim he was a bystander on Jan. 6, or that, as his lawyers said during the trial in Washington, D.C., he was being scapegoated by Trump.

It’s true that he wasn’t in Washington when the attack took place — he was in Baltimore, just outside the district limits. But that’s because he’d been ordered to stay away because of yet another criminal case involving burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a historic African-American church in Washington during a pro-Trump rally in December 2020. (He later pleaded guilty to burning the banner and attempted possession of high-capacity ammo magazines. He got five months in jail.)

‘We did this’

This time around, he’ll be going away for a lot longer. There is no doubt that Tarrio played a significant role on Jan. 6. He might not have been smashing through the doors and windows of the Capitol, but after the mob breached the seat of our national government, Tarrio sealed his own fate with a bragging message to his followers that said, “Make no mistake, we did this.”

The government’s case against him and the others included something like 500,000 chat messages, videos and other evidence. Witnesses included former Proud Boys, FBI agents and police. During the trial, both sides, it should be noted, played the infamous video clip of then-President Trump calling on the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate, the moment that empowered the group and swelled its membership.

Tarrio was a key player in this attack on democracy, and Miami, by tolerating his repugnant presence in our midst, was complicit. As he so boldly said, make no mistake, he did it.

But so did we.

This story was originally published May 4, 2023 at 2:27 PM.