The mother of a member of the white supremacist group Patriot Front has kicked her out of her home after her son was seen online rioting at the Idaho Pride Parade, saying ‘don’t believe the media, mom’. We were there to prevent them from grooming the children.’

Karen Amsden, mother of 27-year-old Patriot Front member Jared Michael Boyce, who lives in Springville, Utah, made her decision after an informant reported seeing people being loaded into a U after 31 Patriot Front members were arrested with riot gear at an LGBTQ+ event. -Police said it was shot like a ‘small army’ in the parking lot of a hotel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Karen Amsden out of basement while refusing to leave far-right group after riot arrest at Idaho Pride

Boyce joins far-right group after struggling to fill a ‘gap’ in his life. He was ‘looking for a connection’ and ‘fraternity’ after his father left the family when he was young and came out as gay. Amsden publicly sabotages his son’s participation in the white nationalist group to get him out of it.
Boyce was among 31 Patriot Front members arrested at the Illinois Pride event on Saturday.

His mother, Karen Amsden, told that among those arrested was Boyce, who was struggling to fill the ‘gap’ in his life after his father split from his family after it was revealed he was gay.

A mother-of-one, a licensed clinical social worker, admitted she would go public with her son’s coup to sabotage her position in the group, after previous attempts to persuade her to leave the far-right group had failed.

“As a Patriot Front member, I would love to do everything in my power to not be a part of it,” Amsden said. “And they don’t want her to be a part of their group because her mom has loose lips and a big mouth and she’ll never be able to get away with anything.”

He admitted that since his son got out of prison, he had told him he would stay in the group and therefore gave him a final warning.

I said to him, ‘Then you can’t live here. You can choose between Patriot Front and your family.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I can’t leave the Patriot Front’. I was like, ‘Well, then now you’ve chosen. So pack your things and get out of my house,” Amsden said.

The Patriotic Front is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members perceive Black Americans, Jews, and LGBTQ people as enemies, George Washington University researcher Jon Lewis told the Associated Press.

Lewis said the playbooks include identifying local grievances to be exploited, organizing on platforms like messaging app Telegram, and ultimately showing events marching in neat columns, blue or white collared shirt uniforms, a display of power.

While honor celebrations have long been scouted by counter-protesters citing religious objections, they have not historically been the main focus of armed extremist groups. Still, it’s no surprise that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is increasingly becoming a powerful rallying cry in the far-right online ecosystem, Lewis said.

“This series of complaints fits with their broader narrative and demonstrates their ability to mobilize the same population over and over against the ‘enemy,’” he told the AP.

Boyce first appeared on Twitter in 2020 as a Patriotic Front member, and the social media platform has several hints of his alliance with the far-right group, including his Twitter bio that says he’s an ‘Alpha Chad, professional Antifa’. teabag’ and ‘via Patriot and via f******.’ The username @PedosnJooshang’ is an insulting replacement for ‘Pedos and the Jews Are Hanged’.

In Coeur d’Alene on Saturday, police found riot gear, a smoke grenade, shin guards and shields in the van after towing the vehicle near a park where the North Idaho Pride Alliance was holding a Pride Parade in the Park event, Coeur d’Alene. Police Chief Lee White told the Associated Press.

The group came to riot around the small northern Idaho city wearing Patriot Front patches and logos on their hats and some T-shirts that read ‘Take Back America’, according to police and videos of the arrests posted on social media.

The 31 arrested members came from at least 11 states, including Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Illinois, Wyoming, Virginia and Arkansas.

Among those jailed for misdemeanors accused of conspiracy to riot was Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the 23-year-old who founded the group after the deadly ‘Unite the Right’. Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

Among those arrested was also last year’s St. There was also 24-year-old Mitchell F. Wagner of Florissant, Missouri, who was accused of defacing a mural of famous Black Americans on a college campus in St. Louis.

Wagner’s lawyer, Michael Kielty, said on Sunday that he was not briefed on the charges. He said the Patriot Front has no reputation for violence and that the case could be a First Amendment issue. “Even if you don’t like to talk, they have the right to do it,” he said.

Amden said Boyce, who was arrested on Saturday, was rescued from jail by unidentified donors, along with other members of the far-right group, according to the Daily Beast. The day after his arrest, Boyce came to his mother’s door and told her, ‘Don’t believe the media, mom. We were only there because they were grooming the children.’

Ahead of Saturday’s Idaho event, Boyce told his mom he was planning a camping trip for the weekend. Amsden said she didn’t think twice about the hate group’s protest in Coeur d’Alene until she got a notification on her phone and said she had no “intuition” about her son’s questionable activity.

“I saw this news report that said 31 members of a white supremacist group were arrested at a rally, and I just knew—I knew it was part of it,” he said.

Amsden continued to review pictures of the event, mostly seeing men wearing matching hats and white ski masks, and at one point thought he knew his son.

“I can tell it was him,” she said. “I tried calling his phone and it was going straight to voicemail and I was then able to access the prison website and confirm that he was one of the men who were arrested. It’s a sick feeling.

The worried mother had previously advised her son not to take part in the trips organized by the Patriotic Front, otherwise the chances of getting into trouble with the law increase.

‘He was so misguided and bought all his rhetoric. It just makes me sick,’ Amsden told the Daily Beast, adding that he hoped his arrest on Saturday would be a ‘wake-up call’ for him to leave the band.

“This is not the person I raised,” he added. ‘This is not the example set for him.’

Amsden explained that her son had been looking for ‘some kind of connection’ and ‘fraternity’ since he was a teenager, but found that the Patriot Front had only entered adulthood once.

Boyce was already married and had a family when he joined the white supremacist group, which, according to his mother, is thought to be in 2018. At the time, Boyce’s wife told her mother that she found the faction online and that she “must fill out an application form to join and see some money”.

Amsden recalled that Boyce first began forming his own ideologies at the age of 14 and dealt with his domestic issues peacefully. His mother even got a tattoo of the Buddha and spoke of ‘not letting anger rule and loving everyone’ to others.

“But when he found this group, he completely changed,” Amsden added. I first realized how far she went in Holocaust denial – and one of my personal heroes is Anne Frank. And when he told me that, I thought he was kidding. For example, how can you do it? I just didn’t know what to say.

Boyce, now divorced, has joint custody with his great-grandchildren, whom Amsden calls ‘the light of my life’. And despite his controversial views and affiliation with the Patriotic Front, Amsden still sees his son for his grandchildren.

Boyce said he invested more in research into the far-right group to understand why his son was so fascinated after he settled more in white nationalism.

Amsden also considered calling the police for his son, but Boyce was reluctant to do so, as he had not technically committed a crime. However, she became deeply concerned after learning that her son had been arrested over the weekend.

On Monday, Boyce came to his mother’s home to retrieve her personal belongings and advised her not to speak to media outlets or the FBI. He refused to follow his son’s instructions.

“Actually, he came to my house here,” Amsden said. ‘And there was a moment where I was a little scared because I was hoping he would change his attitude. But it is not.

Amsden added that he ‘only really wants to believe that people can change and he’ll figure it out. But oh my god, it takes a long time.’

The group was scheduled to appear in court on Monday. 31 people were also charged with plotting to riot after police received reports from residents.

What is the Patriot Front?

The Patriotic Front is a white supremacist group founded by 23-year-old Dallas native Thomas Ryan Rousseau.

The group maintains a strict white nationalist ideology in its belief that since the ancestors of the white members conquered America, the country should be left to them and not to anyone else.

The group, which sees black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, argues that its members preserve the ethnic and cultural origins of their white, European ancestors through marches and riots against these groups.

Patriotic Front spreads its message mainly through the internet and social media with materials such as posters, flyers and posters.

In 2020, the group shifted the message of their material from being more antisemitic and white supremacist to a form of “patriotism” that justified its bigotry based on white supremacist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and fascist ideals.

The group is responsible for most of the white supremacist propaganda in the US, representing 80 percent of all propaganda incidents nationally in 2020.

They are currently participating in localized ‘flash shows’ around the country.