White Nationalist Group Targets Bellevue, Gig Harbor

BELLEVUE, WA - An emerging white nationalist group called Patriot Front is advertising its presence across Puget Sound, most recently hanging a banner over I-90 in Bellevue and putting up posters in Gig Harbor. The activity in Puget Sound coincides with Patriot Front groups in other states carrying out similar actions.

Early Thursday morning, the group hung a banner over the Bellevue Way overpass over I-90, according to witnesses. The banner advertised the website bloodandsoil.org. "Blood and soil" is a Nazi slogan that was resurrected by white nationalists that took part in the "Unite the Right" rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.

No one contacted Bellevue police about the banner, Bellevue police spokesman Seth Tyler said. However, a woman named Shannon Henderson contacted the Washington state Department of Transportation about the banner.

WSDOT spokeswoman Nicole Daniels told Patch that department employees did remove the sign. It is illegal to hang banners from overpasses where traffic travels faster than 50 MPH, according to state law. WSDOT will hold the sign for 30 days for the owners.

Late last week, Gig Harbor residents noticed posters plastered on light poles and other public property around the city. Gig Harbor police chief Kelly Busey told Patch that all the posters were taken down. Busey also said two weeks ago a banner was draped over the Wollochet Drive overpass over SR 16 that read, "America is white."

According to pictures on the Washington Front Twitter page, the group put up posters Nov. 8 at Port Orchard City Hall. Other factions of the group have hung posters and banners in San Antonio, Texas, Maryland and Citrus College in Glendora, Calif. In July, the group placed posters inside The Stranger's honor boxes.

"God forbid we elect a mayor based on merit alone. The Stranger gets the Fash wave!" the group wrote on Twitter. "Fash" is short for fascism.

According to the "American fascist manifesto" on the group's website, Patriot Front wants to create a European "nation within a nation." The group is not on the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hate Map," which tracks the locations of hate groups. There is a group operating in Bremerton called Northwest Front, whose goal is to create an Aryan nation in the Pacific Northwest.

Photo: In this Aug. 12, 2017 photo, James Alex Fields Jr., center left, holds a black shield in Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist rally took place. Fields was later charged with second-degree murder and other counts after authorities say he plowed a car into a crowd of people protesting the white nationalist rally earlier in the day.

Image via Go Nakamura/Associated Press