Dozens of far right extremists squeezed into a U-Haul to go start a riot at Pride

Patriot Front members were arrested as they exited their U-Haul
Photo: Screenshot

Police arrested 31 members of a white supremacist group near a Pride event in northern Idaho on Saturday. The men, identified as members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front, were armed with what appeared to be homemade riot gear and at least one smoke grenade, as well as a written plan to disrupt the Pride event and riot along Coeur d’Alene’s main commercial strip, according to multiple media reports.

“It is clear to us based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession and in the U-Haul with them, along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said at a news conference over the weekend.

Related: White supremacists now feel comfortable recruiting at mainstream conservative events

Police made the arrests after a concerned citizen reported seeing what looked like “a little army” loading into a U-Haul truck in the parking lot of a local hotel. Officers later stopped the truck in downtown Coeur d’Alene and found 31 Patriot Front members inside, including the group’s founder Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas.

According to reports, the men had…

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