US: 31 Patriot Front group men arrested for plan to riot
June 12, 2022
Police in the northwestern US state of Idaho arrested 31 members of a white supremacist group for planning to stage a riot at a Pride event in Coeur d'Alene city on Saturday.
Police said they received a phone call from a local resident who saw the men all getting into a U-Haul truck.
Lee White, the chief of police of Coeur d'Alene city, told reporters that all men were charged with conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor. White said additional charges could come later.
What else do we know?
The local resident who called the police told the dispatcher that it "looked like a little army was loading up into the vehicle" in the parking lot of a hotel, White said.
Coeur d'Alene police pulled the truck over about 10 minutes after the call. Police found riot gear, a smoke grenade, shin guards, and an "operation plan" from the van, all of which made their intentions to riot clear, White said.
"They came to riot downtown," White said.
The men came from at least 11 states, including Texas, Colorado and Virginia. Only one man was from Idaho, White explained.
Video from the scene of the arrest show at least 20 men kneeling next to the truck with their hands bound, all of them wearing similar khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks and baseball caps. One had a "Reclaim America" written on the back of his shirt.
Patriot Front is defined as "a white nationalist hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups and extremism in the US.
The group, whose manifesto calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the US, was formed after the deadly 2017 Virginia rally where an avowed neo-Nazi drove his car into counterprotesters, killing one.
rm/aw (Reuters, AP)