Police uncertain where Patriot Front exists in Vermont

Despite reports that a white nationalist group recently placed posters in a few cities and towns in Vermont, law enforcement officials haven’t seen or been able to identify any of the group’s supposed members.

The latest posting alleged to have come from Patriot Front showed up on an electric box outside a Shaw’s food store in Williston, posted over a “Bernie for U.S. Senate 2018” sticker. The poster asked people to report “any and all illegal aliens,” and it included a tip line for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Wikimedia Commons/Beatrice Murch

A white supremacist group called Patriot Front is reported to have a presence in Vermont, but to date, police have not been able to track down members or identify any group meetings.

But aside from those posters and a brief appearance of five alleged Patriot Front activists at Burlington City Hall in 2018, the group appears to have no verified presence in Vermont.

Williston Police Sgt. Bart Chamberlain says the group’s existence is in doubt.

“This is my 26th year that I’ve worked here, (and) in all my professional career I am not aware of any members of such group that reside here in Williston,” Chamberlain told True North in an interview. “That’s not to say they don’t rent a hall or have group meetings here, but not to my knowledge.”

Adam Silverman, spokesman for the Vermont State Police, said he believes the group is located in Vermont based on the appearance of posters.

“The Vermont State Police is aware of the presence of the Patriot Front white nationalist hate group in Vermont,” he wrote in an email to True North. “We are continuing to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate appearances of their literature in various locations throughout the state.”

While most of the posters attributed to the group have appeared in Burlington, local police did not respond to TNR’s repeated inquiries about where members meet or live in the city.

On the group’s Twitter account, one tweet boasts of having placed a poster in Colchester, Vermont. The ambiguous poster reads “Money does not rule you” and displays two fists handcuffed by a dollar sign.

Verification of the existence of “white supremacist” groups in other parts of the country has been similarly hard to pinpoint. In Billings, Montana, where racist posters have been found, Billings Mayor Bill Cole attributed the activity to one or two “bad apples.”

Patriot Front does not have a social media presence on Facebook, making it even harder to track down the group. True North’s attempts to contact the group through the Patriot Front website were not successful.

The Anti-Defamation League, which suggests on its website that Patriot Front has members, goes on to admit the persons who actually put up flyers are surprisingly never identified.

“Under intensified public scrutiny, white supremacists are facing a Catch-22: As individuals, they want to remain anonymous and invisible, but they need to promote their organizations and ideology. Their solution [is] increased propaganda efforts, which allow them to maximize media and online attention, while limiting the risk of individual exposure, negative media coverage, arrests, and public backlash,” the ADL website states.

The Patriot Front website mentions a small “flash demonstration” at Burlington City Hall in 2018, but just a few “activists” are pictured. Five people can be seen in masks and hoodies, similar to the wardrobe of antifa members.

According to a Burlington Free Press report from February of 2018, the demonstration lasted “maybe 10 minutes, not even,” according to a witness.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North Reports. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Bifalcucci and Wikimedia Commons/Beatrice Murch

17 thoughts on “Police uncertain where Patriot Front exists in Vermont

  1. It is not a crime to be a White Nationalist (yet), so why are the police even involved? Just a way to waste taxpayers money and justify their existence.

    • Ah the joys of a totalitarian police state and it it any wonder they want,need a un armed compliant populace.

  2. There’s only one reason law enforcement is involved in investigating posters, flyers, and other propaganda: their political masters have ordered them to seek and destroy those whose message they fear and hate. With huge amounts of taxpayer money behind them, they can afford full time lawyers to assist them in case anyone sues them for civil rights violations, and if they lose? Oh well, the taxpayers will be forced to pay for that too!

  3. After I’ve seen similar outrage regarding the ANTIFA “antics” that have become the violent norm, then–and only then–will I become almost convinced that there is some semblance of sanity in this state. I saw nothing in the one video (31July2019) that indicated anything resembling hate. Funny how the WHITE bandanas are so much more intimidating than the all black uniforms of the ANTIFA thugs. Also curious that ANTIFA’s funding has not been seriously investigated.

    That said, these people would do well to avoid a direct confrontation with ANTIFA, who is known/shown to consistently arrive armed with knives, clubs and concrete milkshakes. The dark hour demonstrations also ought be avoided since they intimate fear. Plenty of time for that if/when it becomes appropriate. Dialogue first and insistence on police involvement to prosecute any violence.

    • They need to create a new ‘enemy’ to justify increasing their budget for all the neat toys they want.

  4. The left denies that the KKK was created by disgruntled Southern democrats following the US civil war and they try to associate them with Trump and the Republicans. The left is even trying to change history by tearing down monuments that reflect their past HATE CRIMES. If the left is so hell bent on reparations to historic slavery, let them pay it out of the DNC budget because that’s where it needs to come from. The vote to free the slaves prior to the civil war was 100% Republicans and 23% democrats in favor. The vote to give citizenship to freed slaves was 94% Republicans and 0% democrats. The vote to allow all to vote was 100% Republicans and 0% democrats, and the list goes on. The liberal left is truly twisted, hypocritical, and deceitful.

  5. How is it hate to inform the public of their duty to report law breakers?? The only hate i’ve seen in the last 2 1/2 yrs has been from the Vile leftest Trump and Trump supporters haters… The TDS inflicted get triggered by the mere sight of a red hat now.. The sanity and mental health of the leftarded has bottomed out on violent hate rhetoric and action as mentioned by Pantyeffa the leftist hit squad on the 1st amendment…it is time for PATRIOTS to stand up and protect our country from the leftist progtarded slime that infests it’s land…

  6. What is ‘white supremacist’ about asking to report a crime? It is your civic duty. That the crime is perpetrated by other nationalities breaking down our door is no reason to call out those who oppose it. What exactly is a White Supremacist, anyway? Sounds like it is anybody who upholds America’s Constitution and loves our country.

  7. So you have a fringe group posting their rhetoric, and a few have a problem with it, I believe
    we still have a First Amendment don’t like it don’t read it !!

    What about an uproar over ANTIFA, the ( Anti First Amendment ) gang, nope that’s a liberal
    group, different story.

    Hypocrites

  8. “The Vermont State Police is aware of the presence of the Patriot Front white nationalist hate group in Vermont,” he wrote in an email to True North. “We are continuing to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate appearances of their literature in various locations throughout the state.”

    Since when did literature and free speech become an investigatable criminal offense?

    • Careful Alex – it appears as though you’ve had a little too much to think.

      The State can’t have people questioning their decisions.

      • 5 people put up what, twenty posters, how many over two years? What’s the number? And now we are declaring ourselves over run with white “supremacists”????? We have an epidemic of racism in Vermont, and we still can’t even find those FIVE people?????

        We need new departments and commissions set up with high paying jobs to ferret out 5 stupid people we can’t even find?

        I will say the DNC serves a really strong punch at their parties.

    • Like all other Leftist goals,when it goes against their agenda.
      The Fascists of ANTIFA are different because they are the Left’s special thugs,so they can do no wrong.

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