St. Regis declares opposition to white supremacist movement

by John Q. Murray

Over 60 people attending the St. Regis Community Council meeting Tuesday night voted overwhelmingly to declare the community’s opposition to the white supremacist movement.

The resolution, drafted by incoming council chairman Jeff Noonan and the outgoing executive committee, appeared to pass unanimously. Not a single hand was raised to vote against it.

The full text of the resolution states, “We, the Community Council of St. Regis, Montana, representing the people of St. Regis and vicinity, hereby declare this community does not condone nor support the beliefs, actions, and prejudices of those who are members of the white supremacist movement.”

Local law enforcement agencies were preparing to monitor a weekend gathering of white supremacists that was originally scheduled on private property at Donlan Flats, about nine miles northeast of St. Regis on Highway 135.

Sen. Jim Elliott said the property owners withdrew their permission for use of the property. As the Chronicle went to press late Wednesday, it was not clear where the meeting would be held.

Sanders County Undersheriff Rube Wrightsman said the organizers have been cooperative with law enforcement officials and say they are planning a private family-oriented gathering of 150-250 people, without any public demonstrations.

The meeting is organized by a group called the Church of True Israel, which offers a description of the gathering on its website, churchoftrueisrael. com. The website includes a list of Mineral County hotels and motels and directions to the gathering, which it calls “a new beginning.” The meeting site is just over the county line in Sanders County.

The group is not affiliated with Superior resident Slim Deardorff or the World Church of the Creator, a group that has held meetings in Mineral County in the past.

The website lists some of the speakers planning to attend, including national Knights of the Ku Klux Klan leader Thomas Robb of Arkansas.

Robb confirmed to the Chronicle by telephone from Arkansas Monday night that he would attend but that he would decline to speak with the media. “I’m generally open to the media. But I spoke to the host for this meeting and they asked me not to give any interviews. I do have to respect the wishes of the host,” he said.

Ken Toole, director of the Montana Human Rights Network, monitors the activity of hate groups throughout the Northwest. He said the Church of True Israel is a splinter group from the Aryan Nations group in Coeur d’Alene. “As near as we can tell, they are a group of people who are disgruntled and spinning out of the Aryan Nations over in Idaho,” he said.

The Aryan Nations group has been in disarray with all kinds of trials and tribulations, leadership shifts and power struggles over the last four or five years, he said. “That group is crumbling. Richard Butler lost a lawsuit which made him lose the compound. He’s now 85 or 86 years old, and it’s coming apart at the seams.” New groups often form as an older existing group disintegrates, he said.

It is significant that the group scheduled its gathering for the same day as the Aryan Nations parade in Coeur d’Alene. By scheduling the event on the same day and within a short driving distance, they will draw people away from the Coeur d’Alene event, Toole suggested. “So I think it’s, ‘Here’s mud in your eye,’” he said.

Both the Aryan Nations and the Church of True Israel are part of the Christian Identity movement, groups organized as churches who share a hard-core racist belief system, that white Northern Europeans are God’s chosen people, Jewish people are the children of Satan, and all others are “mud people,” or people with no soul, he said.

The presence of Thomas Robb is significant, Toole said. Thom Robb is probably one of the smarter organizers in the racist movement today, he said. “He’s very media-friendly, very sharp. He can handle himself in an interview,” he said. “He knows what he’s trying to do, and knows how he’s trying to organize things. He definitely has a place in the national racist movement.”

Toole also said he was also interested to see that the Militia of Montana would send a speaker.

When Militia of Montana leader John Trochmann started out in Montana in the mid-to-late 1980s, he was pretty tightly tied to the Aryan Nations crowd, Toole said. After starting the Militia and gaining national publicity, he distanced himself from the groups. “Militia of Montana likes to deny that they have any connection to the white supremacist movement. Now we see them drifting back in to attending. Trochmann knows very well what ‘identity’ is. He understands what is being said here. I think it speaks to the fact that support for the Militia of Montana has declined dramatically and he’s going back to his core base of support,” Toole said.

The meeting in St. Regis represents the movement that gave us people like Timothy McVeigh and the anti-Semitic murderers of Colorado radio talk show host Alan Berg. “That’s the waters these folks all swim in. It’s reasonable to be concerned,” he said.

Toole said his group would stage counter demonstrations at the Coeur d’Alene event but not at the splinter group’s meeting. “We don’t know enough about what is likely to occur, so we’re not planning to organize anything visible in opposition. If this continues to be an event, we very likely will,” he said.

Toole said that his group organized counterdemonstrations to the World Church of the Creator when that organization showed up in Superior the second time.

“”This group has been seemingly dormant, and as far as I know, this is the first time they’ve done a gathering,” he said. “We want to distinguish whether this is just a flash in the pan, and how much they are depending on local support, by which I mean support from Missoula and Coeur d’Alene and Spokane,” Toole said.

Newly-elected St. Regis Community Council chairman Jeff Noonan said the local residents did not welcome the group. “I served 20 years in the military so people could have freedom of speech. I didn’t figure I was going to do it for ignorance and prejudice and bigotry,” he said. “We have a good place to raise kids here. I’d just as soon that kind of stupidity stayed away.”

Sen. Jim Elliott (D-Trout Creek) also said the white supremacists are unlikely to find any local support. “People have a right to exercise freedom of speech anywhere they want to exercise it. However, these people in no way are representative of the people of Mineral and Sanders County and we reject their beliefs,” he said.

A neighbor on property adjacent to the original gathering site, Bruce Lamb, said that he wasn’t very happy about the gathering. He said he and his neighbors tend to be open-minded about ethnic diversity. “Even my neighbors, I’m sure neither of them is happy about it,” he said.

Sanders County Undersheriff Wrightsman said the owner of the Donlan Flats property that was to host the gathering is not affiliated with any of the groups. The owner was apparently unaware of how the property was going to be used until Wrightsman questioned him about it on Monday. The property owner then withdrew permission for the group to use the property. The Chronicle was unable to contact organizer Charles Mangles before this issue went to press.

Wrightsman said law enforcement officials planned to monitor the event.

“We’re just monitoring everything to make sure there’s no trouble with people trying to get in that they don’t want. We’re not really expecting any problems at the gathering itself,” he said. “This is a family event and there’s no drugs or alcohol or firearms. Our biggest concern would be that maybe some people leave the area and get into some conflict with the local folks, or a group of other people come in and try to interrupt what’s happening.”

Sanders County has been working with the Mineral County Sheriff’s Office and officials from the Montana Highway Patrol, the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation, Forest Service law enforcement, and the FBI.

Wrightsman said they will set up a command post at the St. Regis Work Center. A resident near the St. Regis Work Center said the lights on the helipad were tested last week.

Mineral County Undersheriff Hugh Hopwood said Mineral County has called out its deputies and reserves for the weekend to be prepared. “We don’t anticipate any problems but we plan as if something could happen, just to make sure that everybody stays safe,” he said.

Hopwood said uniformed officers in marked patrol cars would patrol the area to try to head off any potential problems. “We’re going to be very visible,” he said. “We feel that is the best way to deter any problems.”

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