Montana ski town roiled by white supremacist 'troll army'
Source: Associated Press
Montana ski town roiled by white supremacist 'troll army'
Matt Volz, Associated Press
Updated 2:43 pm, Thursday, December 22, 2016
The email to a group that promotes diversity in northwestern Montana warned that white supremacists would encircle the advocacy organization's office and end with someone "swinging by a rope from the nearest lamp post."
"Those days are not far off Jew," wrote the author, identified only as Rudolf, to the group Love Lives Here in the Flathead Valley. "It's best you leave now while you can."
The ski resort town of Whitefish, 6,600 people strong in a valley just west of Glacier National Park about 60 miles from the Canadian border, is an unlikely flashpoint between white supremacist groups and residents trying to preserve the town's reputation as a welcoming vacation destination.
But white supremacists have also been drawn or actively recruited over the years to the libertarian-leaning Flathead Valley in their search of a haven where they can preach and practice their views unmolested. Richard Spencer, one of the leaders of the so-called "alt-right" movement, an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism, is a part-time resident and his National Policy Institute is headquartered there.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Montana-ski-town-roiled-by-white-supremacist-10813783.php
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After Neo-Nazi Posting, Police in Whitefish, Mont., Step Up Patrols
By CHRISTINE HAUSER DEC. 20, 2016
The white nationalist Richard Spencer in Whitefish, Mont., in June. Credit Tim Goessman for The New York Times
The police in Whitefish, Mont., said Tuesday that they have stepped up patrols and are working with the F.B.I. after a neo-Nazi and white supremacist website listed the names and contacts of local Jews, calling on readers to “take action” against them.
Lt. Bridger Kelch of the Police Department in the town in northwestern Montana said that the force was taking the measures after the website, The Daily Stormer, on Friday published phone numbers, work locations, email addresses, and photographs of six Flathead County residents. Several of those targeted were from Whitefish where Sherry Spencer, the mother of the white nationalist leader Richard B. Spencer, lives and owns a building that has been the subject of protests.
The matter has been the topic of national news media articles after a local report in The Missoulian drew widespread attention on social media.
Reached by telephone, Lt. Kelch said Tuesday morning that the department was reviewing social media posts and emails directed at the six people, but that none had risen to death threats. He said the department was conducting patrols, but there had been no reported confrontations in person or by telephone. “We have been looking at any communications,” he said.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/us/whitefish-montana-jews-daily-stormer.html?_r=0
