31 members of Patriot Front arrested in Idaho
You once had to be Black and in the South to have a local group of masked white men assemble to assault you. Today, you no longer need to be Black or in the South, and the violent white men no longer need to be local.
Police in Coeur d’Alene arrested 31 masked members of a white nationalist group suspected of conspiring to riot in the city’s downtown on the same day as a scheduled and nearby Pride in the Park event.
The arrested men of “Patriot Front” arrived in Coeur d’Alene inside a U-Haul truck that police pulled over for a traffic stop. Only one was from Idaho. The rest came from Washington, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. Among the arrested is the national leader of the group, Tom Rosseau.
Conspiring to riot is a misdemeanor. More charges are possible after further investigation.
They came to riot
A concerned citizen called police after seeing men dressed in khakis, blue shirts, white balaclavas and baseball caps, jumping into a U-Haul truck outside a local hotel, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said in a news conference. “They had shields and looked like a little army,” the caller told police who spotted and stopped the truck as it headed toward downtown.
“It is clear to us based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession, the U-Haul with them along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White told reporters. Those included the shields, shinguards, and planning paperwork “similar to an operations plan that a police or military group would put together for an event.”
The Washington Post offers a little background:
Many of those arrested were wearing logos representing Patriot Front, which rebranded after one of its members plowed his car into a crowd of people protesting a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens.
Rebranded? The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies Patriot Front as a white nationalist hate group calling for the formation of a white ethnostate.
“These people”
Pride in the Park advertised as a “family-friendly, community event celebrating diversity and building a stronger and more unified community for ALL.” Patriot Front was not the only group interested in standing against anything like that, the Post reports:
The Panhandle Patriots, a local motorcycle club, had planned a “Gun d’Alene” event on the same day as Pride in the Park to “go head to head with these people,” an organizer said in April during an appearance with state Rep. Heather Scott (R).
The organizer was not identified by name in a video but wore a vest bearing the alias “Maddog” and the insignia of the Panhandle Patriots group. He lamented that the Pride gathering would be “allowed to parade through all of Coeur d’Alene,” saying that “a line must be drawn in the sand” against such LGBTQ displays. Scott did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post late Saturday.
In a news release posted on the group’s website, the Panhandle Patriots encouraged the community to “take a stand” against the LGBTQ “agenda.” It also suggested without evidence that “extremist groups” were trying to hijack the event to provoke violence and said the group would change its event name to “North Idaho Day of Prayer” in response.
The group attempted to march on the park but were turned back by police, reports journalist Alissa Azar.
Ironically, Idaho’s state motto is Esto perpetua, “Be Eternal.” Some attitudes are. As well as how easily some performative “strongly” men are threatened by people unlike themselves.
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