antagonizing and causing disruption. and how would they do that? well, police say they had plenty of things to do that. they had a smoke bomb, a lot of the guys had things like long poles, yes, they had flags on top of them, but they could certainly use those poles to create violence. they also had metal shields with them, and they had protective gear, much like the gear, police said, they use in riot situations, which is partly why these 31 men, all dressed in similar clothing, with these piled into a u-haul, someone spotted them. when you read some of the things they said, it appears to be a military operation, where they had times and places and dates and gps and everything sort of plotted out as to what they were going to do, where they were going to meet, where they were going to go. it really was disturbing when you think about this small town that is trying to show love to everyone in the town, and to
leader of the aryan nations, who had worldwide gatherings here until the town decided to fight back. their fight to remove racist hate from their town resulted in some of the toughest state hate crime laws in the country. we re not going back to the days of the aryan nations. sara sidner joins us now. is it clear whether this group wanted to cause violence and actually hurt people physically or sow chaos and disruption? they were all loaded into a u-haul with shields, and it doesn t look good. reporter: yeah. i mean there were no guns, but there were things that could be used as weapons. police said there was at least one smoke bomb there as well. those aren t generally things you do when you re protesting peacefully. but the police are pretty clear that what they had with them, all dressed in similar outfits, that their plan was to create some sort of chaos. whether or not it was going to be violent or not, that remains to be seen.
reporter: to witnesses, they appeared as a little army, 31 men all dressed in similar outfits, all with their faces covered. police say they were prepared to riot as the city celebrates pride month. the information that we had would lead any reasonable officer to assume that there might be criminal activity afoot based not only on the 911 call but the information contained within the call. reporter: police say they were stuffed into a moving van, caught with shields, weapons, and at least one smoke bomb as they headed toward downtown coeur d alene. i have no doubt in my mind that had that van stopped at the park or much nearer the park, that we still would have ended up in a riot situation. reporter: one by one, police unmasked the men. one of the men, police say, is their leader, thomas rousseau. he along with his group, patriot front, came from out of town and brought with them a nasty racist past, one cnn has reported on over the years.
receiving death threats. sara sidner is in idaho with the latest. reporter: to witnesses, they appeared as a little army, 31 men all dressed in similar outfits, all with their faces covered. police say they were prepared to riot as the city celebrates pride month. the information that we had would lead any reasonable officer to assume that there might be criminal activity afoot based not only on the 911 call but the information contained within the call. reporter: police say they were stuff nood a moving van, caught with shields, weapons and at least one smoke bomb as they headed toward downtown coeur d alene. i have no doubt in my mind that had that van stopped at the park or much nearer the park, that we still would have ended up in a riot situation. reporter: one by one, police unmasked the men. one of the men, police say, is their leader, thomas rousseau. he along with his group, patriot front, came from out of town and brought with them a nasty racist past, one cnn has r