Thirty-One Men and a Truck

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Yesterday afternoon police in the northern Idaho city of Coeur d'Alene arrested thirty-one young men who were dressed in coordinated outfits and packed tightly into the back of a U-Haul truck.   According to paperwork found in the truck they were headed to "Pride in the Park," an annual gay pride event that had been on hiatus the previous two years due to COVID.  The men in the truck, however, (and despite their coordinated outfits), were not going to the park to support the day's gay-themed events, but rather they were headed there to disrupt the celebration and to try to start a riot.

The group had been spotted loading into the U-Haul in the parking lot of an area hotel.  The tipster who called the cops reported that the group looked like a "little army."  They wore khaki pants, navy blue shirts, beige hats, and white balaclavas to mask their faces.  City police and officers from the county sheriff's department intercepted the truck before it got to the park - and made the arrests.  

The arrested thirty-one each had their hands zip-tied behind their backs and were forced to kneel on the grass in their neatly pressed khaki pants while waiting on vehicles to transport them for processing.  Photos of the kneeling miscreants were soon posted all over social media!

The men, identified as members of the "Patriot Front," which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a "hate group," were charged with "conspiracy to riot," a misdemeanor.  They will be arraigned on Monday.  Police believe that the group was planning to riot in multiple areas of the city of Coeur d'Alene, and not just at the park.  They were carrying "riot gear" at the time of their arrests, equipment which included shields, shin guards and even one smoke grenade.

Those arrested were from several states:  Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Wyoming, Virginia, and Arkansas.  Only one member of the group was from Idaho.

"Patriot Front", which apparently formed as a result of the racially-inspired deadly riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, is, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, focused on forming a "white ethnostate" in the United States.

Thomas Lecacque, a history professor at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, had this to say to The Guardian:

"Patriot Front are accelorationist fascists who want to start a shooting war.  The uniforms are deliberate, as is the masking, as are their symbols, as are their targets.  I know we like to make fun of them, but these people are very, very serious and dangerous."

Coeur d'Alene is located in the southern part of the Idaho panhandle in one of the most beautiful parts of the scenic American Northwest.  Over the past couple of decades the area has seen a dramatic rise in people steeped in hard-conservatism moving into the area and working to take over governance at every level.  The immigration of conservative ideologues has created a political environment where an outlier right-wing extremist group like the "Patriot Front" probably assumed they could count on a groundswell of local support - but local law enforcement stood up for law and order and cut their bigoted anarchy off at the knees.

Kudos to the Police Department of Coeur d'Alene and the Sheriff's Department of Kootenai County for quick and decisive action in dealing with a radical threat that could have brought great harm to their community.    Score one for the good guys!