Town Won’T Let Hate Crime Slide

Local human rights advocates may not agree on how to respond to a firebombing and cross burning at a Moscow activist’s home, but one thing is clear: They will respond. They won’t be silent.

At a community meeting Tuesday, approximately 100 people - World War II veterans, elected officials, Holocaust survivors, a local pastor and a variety of human rights supporters - gathered to denounce last week’s hate crime against Lori Graves and talk about ways the community can combat hatred.

Larry Hildes, Graves’ attorney, encouraged the crowd to respond in the most forceful way possible - to join a group of protesters traveling to the Aryan Nations’ Hayden Lake headquarters this morning for a rally at the compound gate.

Graves, 29, was arrested in Coeur d’Alene last summer while protesting an Aryan Nations parade. She refused to let police search her backpack and is now suing the city, alleging civil rights violations.

“Making Moscow a better place is not enough. We need to go where they are. The Aryan Nations does not respect geographical boundaries, as we have discovered,” Hildes told the crowd. “The way to deal with evil is to go to it and confront it and say it doesn’t belong in my community.”

Last week, Graves’ front porch burst into flames when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at her home before dawn. A cross burned in the front yard and a threatening note was found in her mailbox.

Authorities still don’t have any suspects in the attack on Graves’ home, but Hildes said the blame should be laid squarely on the shoulders of the Aryan Nations, not those who might be upset with Graves’ forest activism or a topless protest in Moscow.

Hildes said the letter Graves received contained racial slurs and quotes from often-used white supremacist literature, referring to “the day of reckoning” being near. The letter also asked Graves what her great-grandfather would think of her actions. Graves’ friend Jonathan Crowell, who was also mentioned in the threatening note but was on vacation in Utah when the attack happened, said he resents being transformed from a peaceful demonstrator in downtown Coeur d’Alene into a Nazi target.

“I feel like I’m a victim of an Aryan Nations terrorist act,” Crowell said. “Personally, I’m not looking for conflict, I’m looking for peace and justice.”

Washington State University student Gabrielle Feldman, 24, said she plans to travel to Hayden Lake to send a message that hate cannot be spread to Moscow.

“They can hate us all they want to but the minute they cross that line and burn a cross in one of my friends’ yard, they burn a cross in my yard,” Feldman said. “I’m going to go there and I’m going to tell them that they can’t do that.”