6 North Texans among 31 white supremacists arrested in Coeur d’Alene
dallasvoice.comThomas Ryan Rousseau. Mug shot from the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office in Idao. Six men from the DFW area were among the 31 Patriot Front members arrested Saturday, June 11, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, as they were on their way to disrupt a Pride celebration happening there.
The arrests came one day before the sixth anniversary of the June 12, 2016, massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in which 49 people were murdered. According to reports by CBS News, the 31 men, carrying “riot gear” were arrested after someone called police to say they had seen people “loading up into a U-Haul like ‘a little army’ at a hotel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene.” Thomas Ryan Rousseau, 23, of Grapevine, who has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the person who founded the Patriot Front following the deadly United The Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, was among those arrested and charged with misdemeanor conspiracy to riot.
The five other North Texans arrested in Coeur d’Alene, also on criminal conspiracy charges, were Graham Jones Whitsom, aka Whitson, 31, of Haslet; Kieran Padraig Morris, 27 of Haslet, Steven Derrick Tucker, 30, of Haslet; Josiah Daniel Buster, 24, of Watauga and Connor Patrick Moran, 23, of Watauga.
A seventh Texan, Robert Benjamin Whitted, was also among those arrested Saturday in Coeur d’Alene. All seven men have bonded out of jail.
