12 FBI agents fired for kneeling during racial justice protest sue to
get their jobs back
[December 09, 2025]
By ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a
2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs
back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile
situation and was not meant as a political gesture.
The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by
Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically
affiliated with President Donald Trump. But they say their decision to
take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the
hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political
expression.
The lawsuit says the agents were assigned to patrol the nation's capital
during a period of civil unrest prompted by Floyd's death. Lacking
protective gear or extensive training in crowd control, the agents
became outnumbered by hostile crowds they encountered and decided to
kneel to the ground in hopes of defusing the tension, the lawsuit said.
The tactic worked, the lawsuit asserts — the crowds dispersed, no shots
were fired and the agents “saved American lives" that day.
“Plaintiffs were performing their duties as FBI Special Agents,
employing reasonable de-escalation to prevent a potentially deadly
confrontation with American citizens: a Washington Massacre that could
have rivaled the Boston Massacre in 1770,” says the lawsuit, which was
filed by attorneys with the Washington Litigation Group.
The FBI declined to comment Monday.
The lawsuit in federal court in Washington represents the latest court
challenge to a personnel purge that has roiled the FBI, targeting both
top-ranking supervisors and line agents, as Patel has worked to reshape
the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Besides the kneeling
agents, other employees pushed out in recent months have worked on
investigations involving Trump or his allies and in one case displayed
an LGBTQ+ flag in his workspace.
After photographs emerged of the agents taking a knee, the FBI conducted
an internal review, with the then-deputy director determining that the
agents had no political motive and should not be punished. The Justice
Department inspector general reached a similar conclusion and expressed
concern that the department had put the agents in a precarious situation
that day, the lawsuit says.
It was only after Patel took over the bureau in February that the FBI
took a different posture.
Multiple kneeling agents were removed from supervisory positions last
spring and a fresh disciplinary inquiry was launched that resulted in
the agents being interviewed about their actions. That internal process
was still pending when the agents in September received terse letters
telling them they were being terminated because of “unprofessional
conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to
the political weaponization of government.”
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Federal Bureau of Investigation officers take a knee with
demonstrators as they march on Pennsylvania Ave during a protest
over the death of George Floyd on June 4, 2020, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
“Defendants dismissed Plaintiffs in a partisan effort to retaliate
against FBI employees that they perceived to be sympathetic to
President Trump’s political opponents,” the lawsuit states. “And
Defendants acted summarily to avoid creating any further
administrative record that would reveal their actions as vindictive
and unjustified.”
The plaintiffs are among roughly 22 agents from different squads
across Washington who were deployed to downtown D.C. on June 4, 2020
to demonstrate a visible law enforcement process during a time of
protests in the nation's capital and across the country.
The lawsuit asserts that the agents were thrust into a chaotic
scene, saying that a crowd recognized them as being from the FBI and
“intentionally” pushed toward them, becoming “increasingly agitated"
and shouting and gesturing toward them. Some in the crowd began
chanting “take a knee,” a gesture that at that point was widely
recognized as a sign of solidarity with Floyd, who was pinned to the
pavement by police with a knee on his neck, and the protest movement
more generally.
The agents closest to the crowd were the first to kneel. After the
crowd's attention turned to the other agents who remained standing,
the other FBI employees followed suit, taking a knee in recognition
that it was the “most tactically sound means to prevent violence and
to maintain order.” The crowd moved on.
“Plaintiffs demonstrated tactical intelligence in choosing between
deadly force — the only force available to them as a practical
matter, given their lack of adequate crowd control equipment — and a
less-than-lethal response that would save lives and keep order,” the
lawsuit says. “The Special Agents selected the option that prevented
casualties while maintaining their law enforcement mission. Each
Plaintiff kneeled for apolitical tactical reasons to defuse a
volatile situation, not as an expressive political act.”
In addition to seeking reinstatement, the lawsuit also asks for a
court judgment declaring the firings unconstitutional, backpay and
other monetary damages and an expungement of personnel files related
to the terminations.
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