More Patriot Front members on trial

COEUR d’ALENE — Two more members of white nationalist group Patriot Front are on trial this week.

Kieran P. Morris of Haslet, Texas, and Wesley E. Van Horn of Lexington, Ala., are charged with conspiracy to riot by disturbing the public peace, a misdemeanor.

Last month, a jury convicted five other Patriot Front members of the same crime. The men were sentenced to three days in jail and banned from downtown Coeur d’Alene for a year.

Morris and Van Horn were among the 31 members of Patriot Front who were arrested June 11, 2022, after police stopped their U-Haul truck on the way to a Pride event in City Park.

Prosecutors emphasized that no one has the right to interfere with another person’s lawful and peaceful right to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble.

“That’s exactly what these two defendants and their 29 co-conspirators, members of Patriot Front, intended to do when they traveled from all across the country to Coeur d’Alene,” deputy city attorney Ryan Hunter told jurors Tuesday.

Downtown Coeur d’Alene was like a tinderbox waiting to ignite that day, Hunter said, with law enforcement braced for hundreds of people to attend conflicting events downtown.

Patriot Front members allegedly planned to roll into City Park, deploy from the box truck bearing shields and flags emblazoned with their group’s symbol and create a “confrontational dynamic” in the park. After that, prosecutors said, the group planned to march down Sherman Avenue.

“Inevitably they were going to interfere with, impede, destruct and disturb the public peace,” Hunter said.

Defense counsel said Morris, Van Horn and the rest of Patriot Front wanted only to exercise their own right to peacefully protest a Pride celebration.

“You’ve got two young men dealing with a situation they disagree with,” said Spokane-based defense attorney Richard Baughman. “There’s an event going on in the park that includes men dressed as women playing loud music, singing, dancing extremely provocatively to songs like (“I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry) in front of small children.”

The anonymous tipster who called 911 to report a “little army” piling into the back of a U-Haul bearing shields took the stand Tuesday. The retired veteran and Hayden resident was identified in court only by his first name, Keith.

Keith testified that he was walking his dog near the SpringHill Suites in Coeur d’Alene when he saw multiple vehicles pull into the hotel’s rear parking lot, along with a U-Haul truck.

As if on cue, Keith said, the passengers exited their vehicles and began loading shields and poles into the back of the box truck. They were all dressed similarly, in khaki pants and blue shirts. Many wore masks that covered their faces.

Keith took a photo of the group and called 911.

“Probably 20 people jumped out of their cars with masks on, all dressed the same, and it looked like they were picking up shields, like riot control stuff,” Keith said in the 911 recording, which was played in court.

Baughman said Patriot Front members traveled in the back of a U-Haul truck for practical reasons, not nefarious ones.

“How are you going to find a parking space?” he said. “It wouldn’t make any sense for 31 people to go in their own cars to try and find a parking spot.”

The trial continues today.

Conspiracy to riot is punishable by up to a year in jail, as well as by a $5,000 fine.