<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Courtesy of today's (September 27, 2012) Spokesman-Review.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "></p><h5 class="subhead" style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; clear: both; "></h5><h1 style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; "><font size="3"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Plan for neo-Nazi music fest puts Boise police on alert</span></font></h1><h1 style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; ">Hammerfest site hasn’t been disclosed</span></h1><p></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">BOISE – The Boise mayor’s office is fielding numerous complaints about a neo-Nazi music festival planned for early October, the city’s police department said.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Authorities have been on alert since advertisements for Hammerfest 2012 near Boise surfaced online, said Sgt. Jeff Basterrechea, who is with the police department’s gang intelligence unit. The white supremacist group Hammerskin Nation plans to hold the event Oct. 6, according to a flier circulating online.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“This is a very high priority,” Basterrechea said. “The mayor’s office has received numerous complaints about this.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The skinhead group is rooted in Texas and has branches in Australia and Canada, according to the SITE Monitoring Service, a private intelligence firm that searches the Internet for extremist activity. The gunman who killed six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last month described himself as a member.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The group has not disclosed the exact location of the planned Idaho event, and attempts to contact local Hammerskin chapters were unsuccessful, KTVB-TV reported. Police are working with local venues to make them aware of the group, Basterrechea said.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Former neo-Nazi skinhead T.J. Leyden told the news station he previously recruited for the group with events like Hammerfest. Leyden, who famously left the movement in 1996 and has promoted tolerance ever since, said the Boise event will be used to boost the group’s numbers.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“They’re going to say, ‘Hey, come to this show.’ These kids are going to see it, they’re going to get all pumped up, they’re going to think it’s fantastic,” said Leyden, who cautioned that protesters should stay away and allow law enforcement to monitor the event.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The group is extremely violent. The Hammerfests that they throw in different parts of the country are designed for a couple things. One, it’s designed for unity, but it’s also designed to get people’s anxiety up,” Leyden said.</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“My best suggestion is let law enforcement handle these guys. Don’t go out and counterprotest. This is what they want. They want counterprotesters yelling, screaming and hollering out there to make them feel like they’re big, tough men.”</span></p><p style="overflow: visible !important; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; "><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In 2009, the Homeland Security Department issued several reports on individual foreign and domestic extremist groups such as al-Qaida and Hammerskin Nation. The Hammerskin assessment said many of the group’s members received military training and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.</span></p></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">The Hammerskin Nation website</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; "><a href="http://www.hammerskins.net/">http://www.hammerskins.net/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);"> </span><br><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Seeya at the polls, Moscow, because . . .</span><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">"Moscow Cares"</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.com">http://www.MoscowCares.com</a></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "> </div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div><br></div><div>"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."</div><div><br></div><div>- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007)</div><div> </div></div></div></div></body></html>