PROJECT BLACKLISTED
The Case for Holding Legally Accountable the Neo-Nazi, Terrorist, Racketeering Gang “Patriot Front” for Conspiracies to Commit Violent Hate Crimes Against the People of Philadelphia, Coeur d’Alene, and Boston.
Task Force Butler Institute, a volunteer organization of United States military veterans who use open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigation tools to monitor and counteract extremist activity, has released the initial draft of Project Blacklisted. Project Blacklisted is a 238 page document provided to local and federal district attorneys, states’ attorneys general, and other legal accountability practitioners that is intended to form the basis for civil and criminal legal action against the neo-nazi, terrorist, racketeering gang known as Patriot Front.
Project Blacklisted focuses on three main incidents:
The July 3, 2021 racist assault of an unarmed Black man by multiple members of the Patriot Front gang while the group marched through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The June 11, 2022 arrest of 31 Patriot Front gang members on their way to harass, intimidate, and assault members of the LGBTQIA+ community during a planned Pride Month event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
The July 2, 2022 racist assault of an unarmed Black man by multiple members of the Patriot Front gang while the group marched through Boston, Massachusetts.
Patriot Front is engaged in a coordinated campaign of violence against protected minorities in the United States with the explicitly stated intent to promote and incite an ethnostate in the aftermath of their desired collapse of American democracy. Project Blacklisted details this campaign, and shows that Patriot Front meets the statutory definition of engaging in terrorism as a street gang and criminal racketeering organization; and their activity constitutes conspiracies to commit hate crimes by both state and federal statutory definitions; and their activity constitutes conspiracies to commit hate crimes by both state and federal statutory definitions. The document specifically outlines evidence to show that the Patriot Front gang is in violation of as many as 11 federal statutes and a combined 38 statewide laws in Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Massachusetts.
The format and presentation of the evidence contained in Project Blacklisted is based on the successful Sines v Kessler civil lawsuit which held those responsible for the deadly 2017 Unite the Right Neo-Nazi Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia accountable and effectively dismantled multiple white supremacist groups.
This document was made possible thanks to untold hours of work by a loose coalition of anti-fascist, anti-racist researchers and activists who work tirelessly to protect frequently-marginalized communities throughout the United States. We are grateful for the information and research that has been shared openly by such actors. Many of the individuals and organizations whose work informed this project are anonymous due to the danger inherent to counteracting violent extremist groups. Task Force Butler Institute is grateful for the opportunity to compile these anti-fascists’ and anti-racists’ work into a single document to empower community stakeholders to hold the Patriot Front gang accountable for their criminal activity.
