Two Alabama Men Among 31 Arrested For Thwarted Riot At Idaho Pride Event

COEUR d'ALENE, IDAHO — Two Alabama residents were reportedly among 31 men taken into custody Saturday after being found in the back of a U-Haul truck near an LGBTQ+ Pride event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

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As Patch reported over the weekend, those discovered in the U-Haul are believed to have ties to Patriot Front — a white nationalist hate group. The Coeur d'Alene Police expressed their belief to local and national media that the group intended to start a riot as the Pride event was taking place.

According to Kootenai County Jail records and media reports, the group was made up of men from 12 different states, including Alabama. When they were discovered in the windowless cargo box of the moving truck, police found the men each dressed in khaki pants with navy blue shirts, beige hats and a white cloth masks covering their faces.

Of those arrested were Steven Derrick Tucker and Wesley Evan Van Horn, both residents of Lexington, Alabama — a small town in Lauderdale County with a population of roughly 700. Their ties to the Patriot Front remain unclear in the early stages of the investigation.

While the 31 men face misdemeanor conspiracy to riot charges, according to reporting by CBS News, none had been formally charged as of Monday morning.

As Patch previously reported, the Patriot Front is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members perceive Black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ+ people as enemies.

The Associated Press also reported that one of the men booked into the Kootenai County Jail in connection with the thwarted riot was Thomas Ryan Rousseau — identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the founder of the Patriot Front group.

In addition to the two men from Alabama, the 31 men came from the following states: Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Washington, Oregon, Illinois and Arkansas.

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