Proud Boys Regroup Locally to Add to Ranks Before 2022 Midterms

While the Proud Boys’ membership is not public, Mr. Holt said the group appeared to be growing in small towns and counties.

Often, their presence has been enough to disrupt events. Last month, the school board in Beloit, Wis., said it canceled classes because some of the Proud Boys were at a local protest over mask requirements. In Orange County, Calif., the school board said in September that it would install metal detectors and hire extra security after several Proud Boys attended a meeting and threatened its members.

In New Hanover County, N.C., which has roughly 220,000 people and is two hours north of Charlotte, Stefanie Adams, the school board president, said she had read about the group’s increasing appearances and began tracking the reports closely.

Ms. Adams said she had an inkling that the Proud Boys might show up in her school district, which has 25,000 students. Because North Carolina law requires the county school board to vote on whether to continue a mask mandate for students each month, the district had handled many contentious meetings over the issue, she said.

“I figured we were on their radar, and that we might be next,” Ms. Adams said. “We knew we had to prepare for them coming to our town, too.”

Last month, Ms. Adams was notified by the board’s head of security, which she had hired for the monthly meetings, that some Proud Boys were outside the building for the mask mandate vote.

Five Proud Boys eventually entered the room and stood in the back, Ms. Adams said. They folded their arms across their tactical vests and wore matching T-shirts with images of a rooster, the group’s insignia. While they did not speak publicly, video footage from the two-hour meeting showed them clapping and cheering as anti-mask speakers made their case.

For all the latest Technology News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TechNewsBoy.com is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.