Six of the 31 members of a white supremacist group who were arrested last month near a gay pride event in northern Idaho will appear in court Monday followingnoon to face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to cause a riot.
Members of the Patriot Front were arrested June 11 in riot gear following an informant reported seeing people getting into a U-Haul rental truck in a hotel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the police said. policeman.
Appearing at Monday’s court hearing will be Josiah Buster and his brother Mishael Buster and Connor Moran, all of Watauga, Texas; Derek Smith of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Dakota Tabler of West Valley City, Utah; and Justin O’Leary, of Des Moines, Washington.
They had each posted $300 bail and were released following their arrest.
Among those arrested was Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, who has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the 23-year-old who founded the group following the deadly “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. .
Also among those arrested was Mitchell F. Wagner, 24, of Florissant, Missouri, who was previously accused of defacing a mural of famous African-Americans on a college campus in St. Louis last year.
Michael Kielty, Wagner’s attorney, said the Patriot Front does not have a reputation for violence and that the case might be a First Amendment issue.
“Even if you don’t like the speech, they have the right to do it,” Kielty stressed following the arrests.
The Patriot Front is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members perceive black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, said Jon Lewis, a George Washington University researcher who specializes in violent extremism in the United States.
