COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho, USA ( Associated Press) — Six of 31 members of a white supremacist group who were arrested last month near a gay pride event in northern Idaho to face conspiracy charges on Monday afternoon Will appear in court. a riot.
Police said members of the Patriot Front were arrested in riot gear on June 11, after an informer spotted people entering a U-Haul rental truck in the parking lot of a hotel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Police said.
Josiah Buster and his brothers Michael Buster and Connor Moran, all of Watauga, Texas, who appear at Monday’s court hearing; Derek Smith of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Dakota Tabler of West Valley City, Utah; and Justin O’Leary of Des Moines, Wash.
They each posted a $300 bond and were released after their arrest.
Among those arrested was Thomas Ryan Russo of Grapevine, Texas, who has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a 23-year-old who founded the group in 2017 after the deadly “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia Was. ,
Among those arrested were Michelle F., 24, of Florissant, Missouri. Wagner, who was accused last year of distorting a mural of famous African-Americans on a college campus in St.
Wagner’s attorney, Michael Kelty, said the Patriot Front has no reputation for violence and that the case may be a First Amendment issue.
Kilty insisted after the arrest, “Even if you don’t like the speech, they have a right to do it.”
The Patriot Front is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members view black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, said George Washington University researcher John Lewis, who specializes in violent extremism in the United States.
