Pride in the Park, Patriot Front in the Pokey!

A Pride event held in the town that Aryan Nations their headquarters was threatened by neo-fascists. In the end they provided the event with even more entertainment!

COEUR D’ALENE, ID – The day started off with unease as to how a Pride Festival in town that was being threatened with violence by neo-fascists was going to go. It ended as a successful event while 31 members of Patriot Front that presumably were about to enter the event near its end found themselves arrested and charged with conspiracy to riot.

According to police, Patriot Front members from eleven states – only one from Idaho – were spotted by a “concerned citizen” piling into the back of a U-Haul truck wearing their usual uniform of white masks with sunglasses, blue shirts and hats and khaki pants, while also holding shields. This has been a standard practice of the organization whenever they planned to hold a flash mob-style rally, but when the police were informed it only took them ten minutes to stop the van and detain all inside the truck. Many pulled away from the Pride event to watch and take pictures of the Patriot Front members getting arrested. The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office and Coeur d’Alene Police Department worked with the FBI to make the arrests.

While at the time of this posting none of the persons arrested have been identified, pictures have reportedly shown Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau among those being taken away. All are due to be arraigned on Monday, and despite the Kootenai County Jail being nearly full, Sheriff Robert Norris assured the public that they will “find the room for these 31 people.”

The arrests of the Patriot Front members capped a day that saw attendees on alert since a viral video of Mike Birdsong of the Panhandle Patriots announcing a counter to the event known as “Pride in the Park,” an event that had been taking place in Coeur d’Alene annually for the past six years and returning after two years following the pandemic. In the video he vowed to “go head-to-head with these people,” saying further that “a line needs to be drawn in the sand.” Beforehand, white nationalist and Holocaust denier Vincent James Foxx who reportedly moved into the area sometime over the past year, was campaigning against the event on his social media outlets as well as his own website. This activity encouraged some antifascists to travel to Idaho to be a part of the event and to ensure that it remained safe. In the end most of the altercations never went above verbal ones. Meanwhile, Henrik Palmgren of the neo-Nazi media outlet Red Ice was at the stage taping the drag queen performances. He and his Red Ice partner Lana Lotkeff have, like Foxx, also moved to Idaho recently. Ironically, the bandshell used for much of the event was often used by Aryan Nations when they held rallies in the park years ago.

There were few incidents during the day and before the Patriot Front arrests, two had been arrested early on for unknown charges. A drag show held later in the evening was sold out.