COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho — KREM 2 News was there this June as authorities stopped a U-Haul a few hundred feet from Coeur d'Alene's Pride Event, arresting the 31 masked men inside.
Pictures and videos spread across the country.
"Underneath the mask that the Patriot Front gang wears are neo-Nazis," Task Force Butler Founder Kristofer Goldsmith said. "They are people who believe in genocide they are people who want to actively work to make the United States a white ethnostate."
Task Force Butler is a group of volunteer veterans specializing "in the detection and disruption of today's greatest threats against democracy: disinformation campaigns and domestic extremism" according to their website. More recently, Patriot Front has been at the top of their list.
"They can commit acts of violence, walk back into a crowd and the police who may even witness the violence say, 'Well I don't know which masked member of this gang it was,'" Goldsmith said.
Coeur d'Alene wasn't the first of last time the group popped up. In July 2021, they assaulted a black man during a March in Philadelphia.
"After they were arrested in Coeur d'Alene for conspiracy to riot, they did the exact same thing at independence day weekend in Boston," Goldsmith said.
Goldsmith focuses on these three incidents in the 237 page report Project Butler put together, identifying members, how the group operates and existing laws he believes prosecutors can use against them.
"I hope the City of Coeur d'Alene is not left responsible for trying to find justice and take down this violent terrorist gang," Goldsmith said. "It really needs to be the feds because all of those conspiracy to commit hate crimes are interstate."
Goldsmith has shared his report with prosecutors in Kootenai County and the Attorneys General in Idaho, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, hoping they can work together and share information to bring more serious charges and penalties against the group, which Goldsmith says should be treated as a street gang.
"These attorney generals can bankrupt this violent gang," Goldsmith said. "They can force them to not have the money to travel around the country and terrorize frequently marginalized communities."
"We are here to make sure justice is found, to work with law enforcement, and to ensure that American cities are free from fascists and neo-Nazis."
So far, the 31 men arrested in Coeur d'Alene have been charged with conspiracy to riot, which is punishable by up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. The first trials are scheduled to start next month.
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