Members of the white separatist organization Patriot Front spent hours in online chat rooms, meticulously planning how to avoid arrest when they carried out nighttime vandalism raids or tried to disrupt progressive events. It held plans so tightly that members weren’t told of destinations until virtually the time of departure, and they shrouded their true identities even from each other, hiding behind pseudonyms. But Patriot Front was unprepared for a casual onlooker to notice last Saturday as its members suspiciously toted tactical shields from a Toyota Camry to a U-Haul truck outside a hotel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Suspicious, the witness called police. Thirty-one of the group’s members were unmasked when Coeur d’Alene police arrested them, allegedly on the way to disrupt an LGBTQ+ pride celebration at a nearby park. (…) Patriot Front is known to have orchestrated flash demonstrations to counter progressive events in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Houston and Austin, Texas, without facing arrest. But the wholesale roundup in Coeur d’Alene was different. Six Washington men were among the Patriot Front members arrested for misdemeanor conspiracy to riot: Colton Michael Brown, 23, of Ravensdale; Justin Michael O’Leary, 27, of Des Moines; James Julius Johnson, 36, of Concrete; Spencer Thomas Simpson, 20, of Ellensburg; Mishael Joshua Buster, 22, of Spokane, and his brother Josiah Daniel Buster, 24, of Watauga, Texas, whom public records link to the same Spokane address. They have not been charged, and were released on $300 bail each. (…) For a group protective of its plans, it is noteworthy that the social justice nonprofit Unicorn Riot in January released months of secretly recorded conversations of Patriot Front members on the voice chat platform Mumble. (…) Chats included hate speech that demeaned Jewish, Black and LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants. They planned vandalism with graffiti or to post propaganda at colleges and culturally significant locations throughout Washington, and sometimes carried it out, often at night to avoid detection.
via seattletimes: Patriot Front arrests in Idaho unmask a new generation of hate groups