Police in Idaho said they’ve received death threats after arresting dozens of suspected members of a white supremacist group right before they allegedly planned to riot at an LGBTQ Pride event Saturday, the Washington Post reports. Coeur d’Alene police received about 150 calls in the two days after making the arrests, said Chief Lee White. In half of them, callers identified themselves and praised the police department for stopping the 31 men accused of having ties to Patriot Front, which the Anti-Defamation League identifies as a hate group. "And the other 50 percent, who are completely anonymous, offered death threats against myself and other members of the police department merely for doing our jobs," White said. Calls have come from as far away as Norway. He added that the department also received threats to dox police officers, or maliciously publish their personal information on the internet.
On Saturday afternoon, Coeur d'Alene police, acting on a tip from a 911 caller, pulled over a U-Haul truck less than a quarter-mile from a park that was hosting a Pride event. The men were clad in riot gear that included shields, shin guards, helmets, a smoke grenade and long metal poles like those used by some U.S. Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, White said. Police found a plan detailing what the would-be rioters intended to do once they arrived at the event. It included how to confront people and when to use the smoke grenade. The threats against the police department and the Pride event follow warnings from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about potential violence in coming months amid midterm election battles and a Supreme Court decision on abortion rights. It was the latest push by DHS to alert people to danger posed by domestic violent extremists, a shift after the agency's focus on the threat of international terrorism.