Civil Rights Lawsuit in North Dakota Accuses a White Supremacist Group of Racial Intimidation
U.S. News & World Report Two nonprofits have sued a white nationalist hate group in North Dakota, alleging that it committed racial intimidation by defacing businesses and public property around the city of Fargo with the group's logo and other graffiti.
The lawsuit filed against Patriot Front in federal court on Friday alleges that the group, two of the group's leaders and 10 others violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which the complaint says "was designed to prevent precisely the kind of conspiratorial racist activity that Defendants perpetrated in this case.
The lawsuit, filed by the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition, the Immigrant Development Center and the centers executive director, says Patriot Front also posted anti-immigrant propaganda days after a man of Syrian descent fatally shot a Fargo police officer and wounded two others in July. The suit seeks a jury trial and damages of an amount to be determined at trial, as well as attorneys fees and other relief.
No attorney is listed on the case docket for Patriot Front or the other defendants. Attorney Jason Lee Van Dyke, who has represented members of Patriot Front in other cases, did not respond to a message left with his office. Attorney Robert Sargent, who recently represented group members at a criminal trial in Idaho, said he knew nothing of the lawsuits against Patriot Front.
