Over the weekend, six Utahns were among the 31 members of the right-wing extremist group Patriot Front arrested in Idaho. Authorities allege they planned to spark a riot at a local Pride event in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. The neo-Nazi organization has been active in Utah since at least 2019. Members conducted a training camp in southern Utah late last year.
Patriot Front is a white nationalist neo-Nazi group that was formed in 2017. The organization split off from the alt-right organization Vanguard America after a member of that group plowed a car into a crowd killing Heather Heyer, a counterprotester at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Patriot Front’s leader was among those arrested in Idaho on Sunday.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Patriot Front generated more than 80% of the extreme right-wing propaganda they tracked across the U.S. in 2021.
The group is known for conducting “flash” demonstrations, where members march through an area for 15-20 minutes and make a quick exit, with the whole thing filmed for propaganda purposes. Patriot Front held a march near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in December and demonstrated at the March for Life in January.
In January, the nonprofit news organization Unicorn Riot published a massive leak of data from Patriot Front’s servers. The leak included more than 400 gigabytes of data from Patriot Front’s website.
In that trove of information are photos and videos of Patriot Front members camping and running military-style drills near Sand Hollow Reservoir in southern Utah. The files are dated Nov. 19, 2021.
(Unicorn Riot) A leaked photo obtained by the news website Unicorn Riot shows members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front conducting training in Southern Utah in November 2021.
(Unicorn Riot) A leaked photo obtained by the news website Unicorn Riot shows members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front conducting training in Southern Utah in November 2021.
(Unicorn Riot) A leaked photo obtained by the news website Unicorn Riot shows members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front conducting training in Southern Utah in November 2021.
In the videos, eight group members are participating in a drill that appears to be focused on protecting themselves with shields. On Sunday, many of the 31 people arrested in Idaho had riot shields and wore shin guards.
At least two in the Utah training videos appear to be among those arrested in Idaho on Sunday.
Unicorn Riot said they identified one participant in the training known as “Joshua UT” in leaked Patriot Front chat logs. Unicorn Riot also said they identified the person leading the drills as a resident of Midway who was also arrested in Idaho.
Two of the group’s members were arrested in Weatherford, Texas, in 2020, after placing Patriot Front stickers on public property. Another member charged in that case was among those arrested in Idaho on Sunday.
It appears one of the group’s members gave a false name to the police following his arrest. Court documents show he legally changed his name in 2020.
Morgan Moon, an investigative researcher for the Center on Extremism, says the tactics seen in the video are a good demonstration of how Patriot Front prepares for their “flash” demonstrations.
“In the buildup to the march in D.C. in December, groups across the United States held these training events like the one in Utah,” Moon said. “About six or seven individuals practiced forming riot shield walls, hand-to-hand combat and other physical preparation.
Moon added the Idaho demonstration was out of character for Patriot Front.
“Usually, when they hold a flash demonstration, it will be on a patriotic holiday like the Fourth of July or Memorial Day,” Moon said. “This is the first time they’ve taken an anti-LGBTQ position.”
In Feb. 2021, seven members of Patriot Front were involved in a car crash near Wellington. One passenger was killed. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch reported the group’s leader, who was involved in the crash, was hospitalized with injuries so severe they required emergency surgery.
Correction • An earlier version of this story misidentified the location of the Patriot Front training.
