Aryan Nations recruiting again in northern Idaho

Published 3:54 pm Saturday, April 18, 2009

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — The Aryan Nations has returned to northern Idaho with what it is calling a “world headquarters” and is recruiting new members.

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.

The fliers show a young girl asking her father “Why did those dark men take mommy away?”

But many in the region reject the group.

“I saw Aryan Nations and put it in the trash,” said Garvin Jones. “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.”

The newspaper reported most of the people interviewed in the neighborhood that received the fliers declined to give their names out of fear of retribution.

The Aryan Nations had a compound in northern Idaho until 2000, when the group lost a $6.3 million civil judgment in favor of two people who sued after being attacked by Aryan Nations’ members.

The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations has fought the Aryan Nations for decades and is offering its services to anyone threatened or harassed by the group.

“It’s bound to be a small group of people trying once again to bring hate into the community,” said Tony Stewart, a spokesman for the task force. “They don’t have anywhere to operate from except a post office box.”

O’Brien said the group has a location, but it’s “membership privileged information only.”

O’Brien, who has a large swastika tattoo on his scalp, said he lives in a home on the east side of the city where he regularly flies two white supremacist flags.

The newspaper reported that its files show O’Brien marching in a neo-Nazi parade in Coeur d’Alene in July 2004 and joining in a skinhead rally that drew eight people outside the Spokane County courthouse in Spokane in June 2007.

O’Brien said he and Michael Lombard have taken over the group following longtime leader Richard Butler, who died in 2004.

The fliers are signed “Aryan Nations, Church of Jesus Christ Christian,” and O’Brien and Lombard on the group’s Web site are listed as “pastors.”

In a routine assessment of domestic security that was sent to U.S. law enforcement agencies last week, the Homeland Security Department warned that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members.

At least two residents who received the fliers called the Coeur d’Alene Police Department. Sgt. Christie Wood said no investigation is planned because distribution of the fliers is protected free speech.

But she said it’s a crime to harass anyone based on race and such incidents should be reported.

In other Idaho incidents following Obama’s election, a man in the northern Idaho town of Vay erected a sign advertising a “free public hanging” of the then president-elect and several other political figures.

Also, second- and third-graders on a school bus chanted “Assassinate Obama” after the historic Nov. 4 presidential election, prompting Rexburg Mayor Shawn Larsen to issue a public apology for the children in his eastern Idaho city.