The Washington Post reports:
Police in Idaho arrested 31 people who had face coverings, white-supremacist insignia, shields and an “operations plan” to riot near an LGBTQ Pride event on Saturday afternoon. Police said they were affiliated with Patriot Front, a white-supremacist group whose founder was among those arrested.
Authorities received a tip about a “little army” loading into a U-Haul truck at a hotel Saturday afternoon, said Lee White, the police chief in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a city of about 50,000 near the border with Washington. Local and state law enforcement pulled over the truck about 10 minutes later, White said at a news conference.
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.
The Associated Press reports:
The men were standing inside the truck wearing khakis, navy blue shirts and beige hats with white balaclavas covering their faces when Coeur d’Alene police stopped the U-Haul and began arresting them on the side of the road.
“They came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said at a news conference. All 31 were charged with conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor, White said. The men were going through the booking process Saturday afternoon and are scheduled to be arraigned on Monday, he said.
Police led the men, one by one, to the front of patrol cars, took off their masks and then brought them to a police van. The group’s manifesto calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.
Right wingers and Trump cultists are flooding social media with their usual claims that Patriot Front is a secret FBI operation to make them look bad.
Patriot Front first appeared on JMG in February 2020 when over 150 members chanted “reclaim America” as they marched through Washington DC.
We heard from them again last summer when they were chased back to their U-Haul by counter-protesters in downtown Philadelphia.
They marched again in Washington DC in December 2021 before crashing January 2022 anti-abortion rallies in Chicago and Washington DC.
BREAKING: Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said 31 members of the white nationalist group “Patriot Front” were arrested for conspiracy to riot. Those arrested traveled to North Idaho from 11 different states. https://t.co/dlDu2k85jW
— 4 News Now (@kxly4news) June 11, 2022
Patriot Front was once known as Vanguard America (VA), one of the main organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017. James Fields, the scum who murdered Heather Heyer, marched with VA and was photographed near Patriot Front’s current leader. pic.twitter.com/n3KdQYUV7S
— New York City Antifa (@NYCAntifa) June 24, 2021
This is Thomas Ryan Rousseau marching into Charlottesville chanting ‘blood and soil’ with his group at the time Vanguard America. They didn’t wear masks but after that day they do. He was arrested in Idaho with his Patriot Front guys. VERY dangerous guy on a mission pic.twitter.com/xPdDuQq5LQ
— Sandi Bachom (@sandibachom) June 12, 2022
Following the arrests of 31 Patriot Front members, Chief Of Police Lee White and Sheriff Bob Norris held a prompt press conference describing how a “telephone call from a concerned citizen” was what prompted a traffic stop leading to them finding and arresting the men. pic.twitter.com/ZAwnk7F6ak
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) June 12, 2022
Members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front were intercepted and detained today in Idaho while allegedly en route to possibly commit another white supremacist terror attack pic.twitter.com/GvWOtLAE9X
— Tariq Nasheed ?? (@tariqnasheed) June 11, 2022
Here is the full video of the 31 Patriot Front members being taken out of the U-Haul truck in Downtown Coeur d’Alene 1 block from the Pride in the Park event, as first reported on our FB page. #NorthIdahoNews pic.twitter.com/AV0Fkuz6S2
— North Idaho News?️? (@NorthIdahoNews1) June 12, 2022