Patriot Front members appear in Idaho court
Image via AP.
COEUR d’ALENE — Three more members of the white nationalist hate group Patriot Front pleaded not guilty Monday in Coeur d’Alene to misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot.
The trio are among the 31 Patriot Front members accused of planning to violently disrupt a Pride celebration on June 11 in Coeur d’Alene City Park.
Those who appeared before Judge John Cafferty were Garrett J. Garland of Freeburg, Ill., Branden M. Haney of Kaysville, Utah and Forrest C. Rankin of Lorenzo, Texas. At the time of his arrest, Rankin resided in Colorado.
Though the men received permission to appear in Kootenai County First District Court remotely via Zoom, they will be required to appear in person for pretrial hearings.
Hatewatch, a blog created by the Southern Poverty Law Center that reports on hate groups, reported that Garland assisted in defacing a mural of famous Black Americans on a college campus in St. Louis last year.
Another accused rioter, Mitchell F. Wagner of Florissant, Mo., was charged in March with felony first-degree property damage in connection with the vandalism.
Police arrested the group June 11, after a tipster reported seeing a “little army” with metal shields and other gear piling into the back of a U-Haul truck.
Among the arrestees was Thomas Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, who founded Patriot Front after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in 2017. The group’s manifesto reportedly calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the United States.
Rousseau reportedly had with him a document outlining a plan to form a column outside City Park and proceed inward, “until barriers to approach are met.”
Once “an appropriate amount of confrontational dynamic had been established,” the column would disengage and head down Sherman Avenue.
Those arrested come from 11 states. Only two are from Idaho — Genesee and Idaho Falls — while three have ties to Spokane.
The remaining suspects are expected to appear in court over the coming weeks.
Misdemeanor conspiracy to riot is punishable by up to one year in jail, as well as by a $5,000 fine and up to two years of probation.