BOISE, Idaho For American neo-Nazis, northern Idaho's Hayden Lake represents a modern Valhalla heart and homeland of the Aryan Nations, one of the most significant forces in the burgeoning U.S. white supremacist movement.
But a civil trial opening in nearby Coeur d'Alene on Monday aims to change all that.
The case, brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of a local woman who claims Aryan Nations neo-Nazi security guards beat her and her son in 1998, is the latest in a series of legal moves aimed at crushing racist groups by bankrupting them.
"Northern Idaho has a black eye because of this. It would be wonderful to have that out of here. People of color are afraid to come here because of the reputation," said Brenda Hammond, a human rights activist who lives in sandpoint, north of Hayden Lake.
"That place needs to be responsible for the violence it has spawned in the last 20 years. They've attracted people to be educated in hate," Hammond said.
"That place" is the Aryan Nations compound at scenic Hayden Lake, a 20-acre (8-hectare) camp known for its "whites only" sign, its barbed-wire fortifications, watchtower, chapel and occasional cross and swastika burnings.
One summer evening in 1998, Victoria Keenan and her son Jason were driving past the compound when they say their old car backfired.
A truckload of armed guards, believing a gun had been fired at them, chased after the Keenans and shot at their car.
Eventually, the Keenans were forced into a ditch, where she said one man struck her with the butt of a gun and another struck her son as he cowered on the floor of the car. Two men were sentenced to prison in the attack.
The civil suit charges Aryan Nations' 83-year-old leader, Richard Butler, with recklessness and negligence in supervising his security force.
If the Keenans prevail they could wind up owning the property, which has been appraised at $203,000.
Earlier this month a judge ruled that the suit also could seek punitive damages, which opens the door to much higher awards and possible bankruptcy for the Aryan Nations.
That is the hope among many civil rights activists, who see the Aryan Nations as one of the best-organized forces in American racism.
With chapters in at least a dozen states, a large distribution network for racist and fascist literature and campaigns to organize both prisoners and guards at jails around the country, the Aryan Nations also has benefited from a fresh interest generated by hate groups over the Internet.
Lawyers at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has taken the lead in tracking white supremacist groups, declined to comment on the Keenan case, saying they were saving their arguments for court.
An Aryan Nations spokesman said Butler would give an interview only in exchange for $100 for his defense fund, an offer that was declined by Reuters.
On the group's Website, Butler, a retired aviation engineer often referred to as "the elder statesman of American hate," pleads for financial help to fight the "Marxist anti-Christ, anti-white Jewish cabal." "The cost of defending against a contrived trial brought solely for the purpose of bankrupting a small Christian organization are enormous," Butler said.
"This trial is very important ... for all of the white men and women residing in this nation. We must not let the enemies of our race win this round!" The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Montgomery, Alabama, has been successful in similar cases in the past. Ten years ago, it persuaded a jury in Portland, Oregon, to award $12.5 million to a Somalian immigrant who was beaten to death with a baseball bat by skinheads from a group called White Aryan Resistance.
In 1987, the center won a $7 million verdict against the United Klans after the killing of a black man in Alabama. The United Klans was forced to give its headquarters to the victim's mother.
In Texas, the center won a civil case against a racist group that agreed to destroy its membership list as part of the settlement.
(Reuter)