The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter said Friday. The bureau last spring had reassigned the agents but has since fired them, said the sources. The number of FBI employees terminated wasn't immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20, per the AP.
The photos at issue showed a group of agents taking the knee during one of the demonstrations following the May 2020 killing of Floyd, a death that led to a national reckoning over policing and racial injustice and sparked widespread anger after millions of people saw video of the arrest. The kneeling had angered some in the FBI but was also understood as a possible deescalation tactic during a period of protests. The FBI Agents Association confirmed late Friday that more than a dozen agents had been fired, including military veterans with additional statutory protections, and condemned the move as unlawful.
The group also called on Congress to investigate and said the firings were another indication of FBI Director Kash Patel's disregard for the legal rights of bureau employees. "As Director Patel has repeatedly stated, nobody is above the law," the association said. "But rather than providing these agents with fair treatment and due process, Patel chose to again violate the law by ignoring these agents' constitutional and legal rights instead of following the requisite process." An FBI spokesman declined to comment on Friday.
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The firings come amid a broader personnel purge at the bureau as Patel works to reshape the nation's premier federal law enforcement agency. Five agents and top-level executives were known to have been summarily fired last month in a wave of ousters that current and former officials say has contributed to declining morale.
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