Those Nice White Boys

Cops in Coeur d'Alene got a tip over the weekend that a truck filled with guys dressed in riot gear were headed for the park where a Pride Parade was scheduled.

31 were arrested. 31 were released on bail ($300 each). They all made bail at the same time, and there's no word that I've uncovered on who came up with the $9300 to spring these assholes.

note: "Patriot Front" is a rebranding of the dickheads who called themselves "Vanguard America" when they came to Charlottesville for the Unite The Right thing in 2017.

Charlottesville - Aug 2017

Washington DC - Jan 2021

And then the Coeur d'Alene cops started getting death threats.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Idaho police get death threats after Patriot Front arrests, chief says

Police in Coeur d’Alene have also received threats to publish officers’ personal information on the internet

Police in Idaho said they’ve received death threats after arresting dozens of suspected members of a white supremacist group right before they allegedly planned to riot at an LGBTQ Pride event Saturday.

Coeur d’Alene police received about 150 calls in the two days after making the arrests, Chief Lee White told reporters Monday at a news conference. In about half of them, callers identified themselves and praised the police department for stopping the 31 men, who are accused of having ties to Patriot Front, which the Anti-Defamation League identifies as a hate group.

“And the other 50 percent — who are completely anonymous and want nothing more than to scream and yell at us and use some really choice words — offered death threats against myself and other members of the police department merely for doing our jobs,” White said, adding that they’ve gotten calls from as far away as Norway.

White said the department had also received threats to dox police officers, or maliciously publish their personal information on the internet.

On Saturday afternoon, Coeur d’Alene police, acting on a tip from a 911 caller, pulled over a U-Haul truck less than a quarter-mile from a park that was hosting a Pride event, White said. The men were clad in riot gear that included shields, shin guards, helmets, a smoke grenade and long metal poles like those used by some U.S. Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, White told The Washington Post on Sunday.

Police found an operational plan detailing what the would-be rioters intended to do once they arrived at the event, the chief said. It included how to confront people and when to use the smoke grenade, he added.

“I have no doubt in my mind that had that van stopped at the park or … near the park that we still would have ended up in a riot situation,” White said Monday at the news conference.

Men tied to hate group planned for riot, ‘confrontation’ at LGBTQ event, police say

The threats against the police department and the Pride event follow warnings from the Department of Homeland Security that violence could erupt in coming months as the country faces midterm elections and a Supreme Court decision on abortion rights, the Associated Press reported. It was the latest push by DHS to alert people to the rising danger posed by domestic violent extremists, a shift after the agency’s focus on the threat of international terrorism following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Experts are also warning that white supremacist groups are building thriving communities on social media to recruit new members, the AP reported last week. They traffic in homophobia, sexism and conspiracy theories, escaping detection by authorities through the use of insinuation and coded hashtags, according to experts.

Police didn’t know what they would find after getting the tip on Saturday and then pulling over the U-Haul, White said Monday. While police knew from the caller’s information that they probably would be facing a “crowd of people … who might pose some difficulty for us,” they were surprised by the amount of equipment the men were carrying.

“That level of preparation is not something you see every day,” White said, adding that “it was clear to all of us that there was some ill intent there.”

On Monday, White praised the tipster and encouraged others who witness suspicious behavior to do the same. “This one concerned citizen rather than pulling out their phone and videotaping this for their 15 minutes [of fame] on YouTube, or Snapchatting it or something like that, took the time to call 911 and report some suspicious activity.”

“And as a result, we likely stopped a riot from happening downtown,” he said, adding that the caller’s identity will be protected. “Since myself and other members of our agency have been receiving threats, including death threats, I think it’s appropriate to withhold that person’s information.”

The Anti-Defamation League identifies Patriot Front as a white supremacist group that “justifies its ideology of hate and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of its members’ European ancestors.” One of Patriot Front’s hallmarks is staging “flash demonstrations” across the country, according to the ADL.

Each of the men arrested Saturday was charged with criminal conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor, The Post reported. By Sunday, all of them had bonded out of jail while their cases proceed.