FBI officers are seen taking a knee during a June 2020 protest in Washington, D.C., after the death of George Floyd. Jose Luis Magana/AP
Twelve former FBI special agents who were fired this year for taking a knee during racial justice protests in summer 2020 have sued the Bureau and its director, alleging unlawful retaliation.
The agents, who together have nearly 200 years of experience and once received awards for disrupting mass shootings, exposing foreign spies and thwarting cyberattacks, say they lacked crowd-control training and protective gear when they faced volatile crowds near the National Archives in June 2020. The lawsuit says the small group, backed against a wall and vastly outnumbered, knelt to de-escalate a situation that could have become dangerous, not to make a partisan political statement.
Filed in federal court in Washington by former Justice Department prosecutor Mary Dohrmann of the Washington Litigation Group, the complaint argues the agents acted out of concern that a split-second misjudgment could ignite further violence during an already charged national climate.
The Justice Department inspector general reviewed the incident in 2024 and found no misconduct. But the episode went viral and drew criticism framing the kneeling as political. After Kash Patel became FBI director this year, the lawsuit says he targeted the agents: several were removed from supervisory roles, a new investigation was opened, and all were fired in September before usual FBI misconduct procedures were completed. Dismissal letters from Patel said the agents had shown “unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government.”
The plaintiffs contend Patel broke a pledge made during his confirmation to honor internal review processes. They say the abrupt firings disrupted work, including evidence collection in Utah after the shooting of activist Charlie Kirk and efforts tied to the Trump administration’s executive order “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful.”
The suit alleges violations of the agents’ First Amendment right to free association and Fifth Amendment due process rights and seeks reinstatement and back pay. The FBI declined to comment on pending litigation.