LOCAL NEWS
Five members of white nationalist group arrested Saturday are from WA
Five of the 31 men representing the white supremacist group Patriot Front arrested Saturday are from Washington State, according to North Idaho News.
Authorities arrested 31 members of the organization near an Idaho pride event after they were found packed into the back of a U-Haul truck with riot gear.
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.
31 Patriot Front members arrested near Idaho pride event
“They came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said at a news conference.
A concerned witness called police after watching the group load into the back of a U-Haul truck saying it “looked like a little army.”
The Patriot Front was formed after the 2017 “Unite the Right,” rally in Charlottesville where a counter protester was run over and killed, according to Miri Cypers, the Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League.
“They were actually a splinter group that formed off of Vanguard America, which was one of the groups that was at the helm at the rally in Charlottesville,” Cypers said.
She says Patriot Front formed about five years go and is known for its propaganda and recruitment online by promoting American values, even describing them as “prolific propogandists.”
“Behind this veneer, is a group that believes in a racist, anti-sematic, homophobic, and xenophobic ideology.”
The group specializes in vandalism, racist propaganda, and “flash demonstrations” meant to intimidate minorities, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League.
Based in Texas, the Patriot Front has several hundred members throughout the country.
According to North Idaho News, the five men from Washington who were arrested were James Julius Johnson (Concrete), Justin Michael Oleary lives (Des Moines), Spencer Thomas Simpson (Ellensburg), Mishael Joshua Buster (Spokane), Colton Michael Brown (Ravensdale).
All 31 members of a white nationalist group were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to riot. Alongside being equipped in riot gear, the group had a smoke grenade and paperwork police say resembled an operations plan.
Thomas Rousseau, the group’s founder, was among those arrested.
