WASHINGTON, D.C. — The FBI announced Friday that more than a dozen agents photographed kneeling during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest have been formally dismissed, citing what officials called a “fundamental misunderstanding of Bureau-approved kneeling techniques.”
“Agents are absolutely permitted to kneel,” said FBI spokesperson Brent Halvorsen, reading from a memo titled Proper Posture for Public Order. “But Bureau policy is very clear: the knee must be placed directly on the suspect’s upper thoracic region, not gently on the ground in solidarity with protesters. We don’t make the rules — actually, we do, and this is one of them.”
Internal investigators concluded the agents’ kneeling “sent the wrong message” to demonstrators. “By kneeling with civilians, they risked undermining our decades-long brand of kneeling on civilians,” Halvorsen added.
Former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who initially determined the agents hadn’t violated policy, reportedly defended the gesture as “a rare sign of humanity,” prompting disciplinary action against him as well.
FBI Director Kash Patel doubled down on the firings, saying: “The American people need to know their agents stand tall… except when pressing someone face-first into the pavement, which is the only kind of kneeling we endorse.”
