July 3 (UPI) — Members of the white supremacist hate group known as Patriot Front marched in downtown Boston on Saturday and allegedly attacked a Black man.
A man can be seen in a photograph published by the Boston Herald being hit with a metal shield by a man wearing the Patriot Front uniform, which consists of a navy blue shirt and white neck gaiters as well as khaki-colored pants and hats.
Other members of the hate group could be seen carrying Patriot Front’s banners as well as shields with the group’s sticker affixed. Many of the flags bore the symbol of the political party of Benito Mussolini, the former Italian dictator who created fascism.
Boston Police Sergeant Detective John Boyle told the Boston Globe that police received reports that a Black man had been assaulted by members of Patriot Front who surrounded him and knocked him to the ground with their shields.
Boyle told the Boston Herald that the man said he suffered a cut to his head and his right hand and was taken to Tufts Medical Center.
The incident is being investigated by the Boston Police Department’s civil rights unit, Boyle told the Boston Globe. No arrests have been made.
More than 100 members of Patriot Front were said to have participated in the protest, though it was not immediately clear why the group was specifically demonstrating in Boston.
Last month, Idaho police officers arrested 31 people tied to Patriot Front for conspiracy to riot at a Pride event in the city of Coeur d’Alene.
Patriot Front, founded in the aftermath of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The SPLC has said Patriot Front “rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism” after founder Thomas Rousseau broke from Vanguard America.
Rousseau was among those arrested in Idaho and was later released on bond from the Kootenai County Jail. It was not immediately clear if he was with those who protested in Boston.
“To the white supremacists who ran through downtown today: When we march, we don’t hide our faces,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement. “Your hate is as cowardly as it is disgusting, and it goes against all that Boston stands for.”
