One of the white supremacist groups calling itself Aryan Nations has begun recruiting again in Northern Idaho. Having previously had their land in Kootenai County, Idaho taken from them as the result of a lawsuit, and subsequent to a breakup of the group into three separate groups now using the Aryan Nations name, one of the factions has returned to Kootenai County and is publicly bragging about how President Obama is sure to swell their ranks.
A bit of history about the lawsuit, from 1998, can be read here.
In July 1998, security guards at the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho shot at Victoria Keenan and her son after their car backfired nearby. The Keenans were returning from a wedding and stopped briefly near the compound to look for a wallet that had fallen out the car.
Bullets struck their car several times before the vehicle careened into a ditch. Members of the group held the Keenans at gunpoint.
The compound was heavily guarded and consisted of the home of Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler and several other structures. For decades, it had served as the meeting place for the nation's most violent white supremacists.
The Center filed Keenan v. Aryan Nations, seeking justice for the bruised and traumatized Keenans. After a weeklong trial, a jury ruled that Butler and his organization were grossly negligent in selecting and supervising the guards. In September 2000, they awarded a $6.3 million jury verdict against the Aryan Nations and Butler.
The judgment forced Butler to turn over the 20-acre compound to the Keenans. The Keenans in turn sold the property to a philanthropist who later donated it to a local college.
The group was lead at the time by one Richard Butler. The group started to splinter as Butler fell into ill-health near the end of his life.
Recent years have not been kind to Aryan Nations, once the country's most well-known neo-Nazi outpost. Bankrupted by a lawsuit from a mother and son who were assaulted by Aryan Nations guards, the group lost its Idaho compound in 2001. Though he continued to serve as Aryan Nations’ leader, Richard Butler suffered the effects of age and ill health, and the group splintered into factions in 2002. Butler claimed to be reorganizing Aryan Nations but died in September 2004, leaving the group’s future as uncertain as ever.
Butler agreed to share power with Kreis and Redfeairn later that year, but the arrangement dissolved into internal squabbling. Eventually three groups competed for Aryan Nations' dwindling number of followers. It is unclear how Butler’s death in September 2004 will affect the group.
One of those three groups is now based in Idaho, as can be noted on the contact page of their website.
Please Contact us for further information.
CJCC/AN
P.O.Box 2016
Coeur d'Alene, ID. 83816
Yes, we are back in our home town!
The group is now actively seeking new members, as they informed the Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review.
"I saw Aryan Nations and put it in the trash," said Garvin Jones, who lives in the neighborhood southwest of Atlas Road and Prairie Avenue. "What’s wrong with these people? Give me a break. I bet if you went back in their family history, not one is 100 percent white."
Jones and dozens of his neighbors found the fliers on their lawns, inside baggies that also held small rocks.
They depicted a girl asking her father what he did during the "revolution" and asking "Where have all the White people gone daddy?" and "Why did those dark men take mommy away?" The fliers were signed "Aryan Nations, Church of Jesus Christ Christian," and listed a post office box and a Web site. The group’s address is listed as "Couer d’Alene, Idaho."
Sick, sick stuff. But certainly not to be unexpected right now.
Prior to the teabaggers, Glenn Beck, and their ilk, and prior to police officers being shot because delusional people have come to believe that "Obama's going to take their guns away," there were a series of diaries on Kos noting that there was almost assuredly going to be an uptick in calls for violence. I previously diaried a list of groups likely to be originating threats of violence, one of which was this offshoot of Aryan Nations.
It is going to be extremely important to keep tabs on these groups, and this is precisely why the report by DHS about right-wing extremist groups was entirely appropriate. For those interested in a little more info, the AP also wrote up an article about the return of Aryan Nations to Couer d'Alene.
Coeur d'Alene resident Jerald O'Brien is one of the leaders of the white supremacist group and said he expects membership to grow due to the election of President Barack Obama.
He told The Spokesman-Review that the president is the "greatest recruiting tool ever" and that "like-minded individuals will respond and seek membership."
Residents of a Coeur d'Alene subdivision on Friday found recruitment fliers on their lawns and O'Brien said a lot more fliers will be distributed. He said the group has "several handfuls" of members in the city.