Sheriff scrutinized for rally attendance

Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris is facing scrutiny after his appearance at a GOP rally reportedly attended by multiple white nationalists.

Regional and national news outlets recently took notice of a video that showed Norris speaking at an April 16 political event at Cruisers Bar and Grill in Post Falls.

Norris said Wednesday that he understood the event to be a Republican candidate forum and concert, which he attended in order to support Republicans running in the May primary.

Carl Bjerke, who recently won his GOP primary race for Idaho state Senate, was also photographed at the event.

Speakers were not publicized in advance, Norris said. It’s unclear who organized the rally.

He suggested the event was not attended by white nationalists since Bryson Gray, a “MAGA” rapper who performed at Cruisers, is Black.

“I thought it was interesting that a Black rapper would feel secure enough to come to a cocktail lounge in North Idaho,” he said, adding that he was not familiar with Gray’s music before the event.

An independent musician best known for his song “Let’s Go Brandon,” Gray promoted the Cruisers concert on Twitter, sharing a flyer that said “No Democrats.”

The Panhandle Patriots Riding Club, which had a booth at the event, promoted the concert on Facebook with a version of the flyer without the line about Democrats.

Speakers included David Reilly, a recent Pennsylvania transplant condemned by multiple pro-Israel organizations for his antisemitic writings.

In 2017, he attended the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, sparking outrage in his Pennsylvania community and causing local schools and businesses to cut ties with the radio station where he worked for his father.

Reilly, who wrote in 2020 that “Jews pretend to be white when it’s expedient for them” and foist “the blame for their bad behavior” onto people of European heritage, ran for a seat on the Post Falls School Board in 2021. He lost the election, despite an endorsement from the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee.

He has since registered as a Democrat and participated in a failed plan by some area Republicans to infiltrate and dismantle the Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee.

Though Norris said he knows of Reilly and his white nationalist views, he said he wouldn’t recognize Reilly if he saw him in public.

The Huffington Post reported that Dan Bell — the Youth Chair of the Kootenai County GOP — introduced Reilly as a speaker at the Cruisers event.

“He’s definitely not OK with trans or any of that gay s—,” Bell reportedly said, of Reilly.

After taking the stage, Reilly gave Norris a shoutout.

“I believe he did thank me for being the sheriff,” Norris said, Wednesday.

Reilly is associated with the “groyper” movement, a loose network of white nationalist and far-right activists and internet trolls.

Norris told The Press he doesn’t share Reilly’s “extremist” views.

“I do not condone hate speech to any protected class of citizens whatsoever,” he said.

Norris said he didn’t plan to speak at Cruisers but agreed to say a few words when asked.

A video showed Norris telling a cheering crowd that his law enforcement agency would ignore any executive order regulating firearms.

“I’m the sheriff of Kootenai County and I don’t give a s— what they do in D.C.,” he said. “So you can do whatever you want. Nobody will ever come between you and your Second Amendment right.”

The remarks were off-the-cuff, Norris said Wednesday, but he meant them.

“I stick by that 100 percent,” he said.

He pointed to Idaho Code 18-3315B, which makes it a crime in most circumstances for Idaho officials to enforce an executive order or federal law that regulates firearms.

Norris said he attends many events in the community, and he supports Republican candidates when he can, which was his intention when he went to the Cruisers event.

"I'm helping candidates campaign," he said.

This story has been updated.