After a clash in front of the White House that resulted in two arrests on July 4, a far-right group known as the Proud Boys received a police escort to Harry’s, a nearby bar. Along the way, at least four D.C. police officers, one of whom appears to be smoking a cigar, held out a hand for a fist bump from a Proud Boy.

The footage was captured by independent journalist Ford Fischer.

As the Proud Boys walked, one officer with @DCPoliceDept held up a first to “Pound it” with a cigar in his mouth. pic.twitter.com/fOyaJ0hnjk

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) July 4, 2019

The officers could not be immediately identified from the footage.

“I think that we have to find the context under which that happened,” Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham told DCist on Saturday. “I don’t know what the context was, I don’t know who the person was, I don’t know why they fist bumped, so we’ll take a look at that and see if it’s something that needs any attention. I do think that probably it was somebody who was taking that image that was purposely trying to paint the police in a negative light, but we’ll see. Once we have the context, we can speak about it in more detail.”

He declined to say how the police department would be looking into the context of the footage. Newsham added that the officer smoking a cigar was “clearly a violation of policy.”

Fischer, who filmed and posted the footage, describes himself as a raw footage journalist. “My philosophy is that I livestream so people can see events beginning to end whenever possible,” Fischer told DCist over private message. “In the case of the fist bump, my tweet pretty plainly showed what happened and explained it without judgement. The entire context is viewable in the original livestream.”

According to photojournalist Zach D. Roberts, at least one Metropolitan Police Department officer joined in a Proud Boys chant of “I like beer.” That chant is an apparent allusion to the Senate testimony of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Luke Rohlfing, a prominent Proud Boy, told DCist that it’s not surprising the police were “being friendly with people who aren’t calling ‘oink oink bang bang,'” referencing anti-law enforcement protest chants heard at other protests. Instead, Proud Boys chanted “blue lives matter,” a refrain in support of law enforcement in response to the “black lives matter” rallying call.

The Proud Boys are an all-male “fraternal organization” that formed in 2016. They describe themselves as “Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world,” and have been banned by Facebook and Instagram, due to the company’s policy against hate groups. The Proud Boys are heavily involved in the planning of a far-right rally slated for Saturday at noon in Freedom Plaza.

They were also involved in the only high-profile clash during the Fourth of July in D.C.

Members of the Proud Boys and other pro-Trump folks arrived at Lafayette Square around 5 p.m. to counter protest a flag burning demonstration.

The National Park Service granted Gregory Lee “Joey” Johnson a permit to “to burn a U.S. flag as a symbol of imagining a world without America,” according to the permit. Johnson was the defendant in Johnson v. Texas, the 1987 Supreme Court case that determined flag burning was a First Amendment-protected right.

Rohlfing, an organizer of Saturday’s rally, said that he was at a bar blocks from the White House with other Proud Boys and a “broad group of patriots” when he heard about the flag burning. While he said that people have the right to burn the flag, “any patriotic American should be upset if there’s a person in front of the White House burning the flag on the Fourth of July. We have the right to go there and say this is not a good thing.”

Surrounded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a 44-year-old group advocating for an overthrow of capitalism in the U.S., Johnson burned a total of two American flags. As Proud Boys and other counter-demonstrators attempted to stop the protest from continuing, a series of small scuffles began.

Secret Service officers intervened after seeing “what appeared to be a crowd of people fighting,” according to the incident report. Officers ultimately arrested two people associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, including Johnson. A third person was handcuffed and released at the scene.

None of the counter demonstrators were arrested. Rohlfing maintains that “no one got violent on our side,” although members of his group (including one of the announced speakers at Saturday’s event) did steal one of the burned flags.

Two Secret Service officers were taken to Sibley Hospital for “the accelerant they had inhaled from the American flag that was engulfed in open flame,” per the incident report.

The flag burning was “outside the limits of a permit that had been issued by the National Park Service,” according to the Secret Service. Of the two people arrested, one was charged with felony assault on a police officer and malicious burning, and the other was charged with obstructing a police investigation and resisting arrest.

While the Secret Service does not name arrestees, a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Communist Party confirmed that Johnson was arrested for felony assault on a police officer and malicious burning, and remains in custody, while the other arrestee has been charged and released.

The Revolutionary Communist Party is asking that the charges be dropped. “The revolutionaries [burned the flags] in a serious and disciplined but calm way, up against not only a force of fascist thugs who physically attacked them, but police forces that also launched attacks to prevent the revolutionaries from exercising this right,” the group said in a statement. “In a bitter irony, one of those arrested is Joey Johnson, who was arrested 35 years ago for same thing, fought his case to the Supreme Court and won.”

Last month, the city of Cleveland settled with Johnson for $225,000 after officers arrested him during the 2016 Republican National Convention for burning an American flag. He claimed that the arrest represented a retaliation for his exercise of free speech.

Now, local law enforcement is preparing for Saturday’s planned far-right rally and nearby counter demonstration. The latter will feature groups that have had at-times contentious interactions with police, like Black Lives Matter DC, Sanctuary DMV, and local antifascist collectives.

“We will be staffed accordingly,” Metropolitan Police Department chief Peter Newsham said during a press conference last week. “This is not out of the ordinary here in Washington D.C., so we’ll be ready for it.”

Rohlfing said he and other event organizers are in close contact with MPD about Saturday’s rally. “I gotta give props to D.C. police because they are, unlike a lot of cities, taking this seriously and doing everything they can do to keep us safe,” he said.

This story has been updated to reflect that more than one police officer appears to have fist bumped a member of the Proud Boys and with comment from Luke Rohlfing, Peter Newsham, and Ford Fischer.