According to a report from NPR, 31 white nationalists were arrested near a gay pride event in Idaho after police discovered the group assembled in the back of a U-Haul truck, all donned in riot gear.
Male members of the Patriot Front, a white nationalist group founded during the 2017 Charlottesville Riots, were wearing white masks, beige caps, navy blue shirts, and khakis when they were arrested by police near the North Idaho Pride Alliance event.
All of the men were charged with conspiracy to riot, which is a misdemeanor. They are scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.
Police discovered riot gear, one smoke grenade, shin guards, and shields.
The U-Haul was reported by a passerby, who told police that the group looked like “a little army was loading up into the vehicle” when he saw them in the parking lot of a hotel.
The men in the group came from eleven states, including Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Virginia, Arkansas, Wyoming, and Illinois.
There was only one member of the group that was actually from Idaho.
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Patriot Front as a “white nationalist hate group” that calls for the formation of a white ethnic state within the United States.
“The American Identity was something uniquely forged in the struggle that our ancestors waged to survive in this new continent,” the group’s manifesto reads. “To be an American is to realize this identity and take up the national struggle upon one’s shoulders. Not simply by birth is one granted this title but by the degree to which he works and fulfills the potential of his birth.”