FBI Intercepts White Nationalist Riot Plans at Idaho Pride

A group of White Nationalists known as Patriot Front arrived in the midwestern city of Coer d’Alene Idaho with the intent to storm the annual gay pride parade scheduled to take place on Saturday.

31 people were arrested when the FBI were notified after the large group of men with their heads covered with white cloth masks topped by a khaki colored baseball cap began staking out the parade route. Patriot Front, who have history of public violence, was organized as an offshoot of another white supremacist group, Vanguard America, after the deadly Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia which saw men marching down the main street with tiki torches chanting “Jews will not replace us” back in 2017. The aggressive hate group also staged a march in Washington DC in 2020, forcing local hotels to close fearing an outbreak of violence. Members of the group carried upside-down US Flags as they were recorded shouting “Reclaim America” before releasing red and blue smoke grenades.

The men arrived in downtown Coer d’Alene with the intent to incite a riot against revelers celebrating at the Pride Parade. Armed with extensive gear including shields and body armor, as well as written, detailed plans of execution that local Police Chief Lee White described as “similar to operation plans that a police or military group would put together for the event,” the hate group was also in possession of a U-Haul and had traveled to the city from multiple other states in the US including Texas, where the group is based, as well as Colorado, South Dakota, Arkansas, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon and Virginia. Only one of the men was from Idaho.

According to ProPublica, a watchdog group dedicated to surveilling and reporting on radicalistic groups, Patriot Front is the most active white supremacist group in the nation.

Sheriff of Kootenai County, Bob Norris informed the public that a local resident had witnessed a group of people who were “dressed like a small Army” piling into the U-haul and tipped off local authorities. They were positioned a mile away from the epicenter of the Pride festivities where the North Idaho Pride Alliance was holding “Pride in the Park.”

Once the men were detained by police, videos of their arrest went viral.