Hate Comes In A Glossy Package New White Supremacy Group Targets North Idaho Homes With Mass Mailing

A new white supremacy group based in Sandpoint is behind an expensive mass mailing targeting homeowners in North Idaho.

The mailing includes an anti-Semitic booklet and a full-color 6-foot-tall poster that claims religious superiority of the white race.

Each packet probably cost $5 to print, fold and mail, experienced printers said.

The materials were published by an organization calling itself The 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, which lists a return address in Sandpoint.

The address is for a leased drop box at the Mail Boxes Etc. business on First Street.

Two wealthy retired businessmen who moved to Sandpoint from California are believed to be providing the bankroll behind the organization.

The message of white superiority and denunciation of Jews is the same as that promoted by America’s Promise Ministries in Sandpoint and the Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

While the mass mailing apparently doesn’t break any laws, its expense and sophistication surprised human rights activists and law enforcement officials.

Authorities don’t know how many packets have been mailed, who mailed them or all of the areas targeted.

Most arrived late last week or early this week.

An estimated 400 homeowners in the Emerald Estates neighborhood of Hayden received the packets. Others were mailed to homeowners in Priest River, according to human rights activists.

Dozens of copies of the same material were handed out at the Aryan Nations compound prior to the July 18 neo-Nazi parade in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

The Aryan Nations was supplied with 4,000 copies of the literature from a benefactor who also paid for postage, a church member said Thursday.

“We’ve mailed them out to everybody on our (church) mailing list, and we know that they’re being mailed out in other states, too,” the member said.

At least a half-dozen homeowners, including one Jewish family, have turned the literature over to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department.

Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas, who has seen the literature, said he was surprised by the expensive quality of the material enclosed in plastic-reinforced mailers.

“It’s a hate message that doesn’t rise to the level of a hate crime under Idaho law,” Douglas said.

He said its contents are despicable.

Authorities say there’s no evidence suggesting a particular group is being targeted.

A ranking sheriff’s investigator said he believes dissemination of the literature is protected by the First Amendment and doesn’t constitute a hate crime.

“There’s no evidence that just one group is being targeted with this material,” the investigator said. “Everybody is getting it.”

But its anti-Semitic tone is particularly frightening to Jews, including an elderly Hauser woman.

“She believes she was targeted with this stuff because she’s a Jew,” said the woman’s daughter, who asked not to be identified.

“My mother is terrified over getting this with her name on it in the mail,” the woman said.

Tony Stewart, a member of the Kootenai County Human Rights Task Force, said the mailing contains a “vile message of hate.”

He said he’s disturbed that “perpetrators of hate in North Idaho may now have a new wealthy funding source.

“The message is repugnant to anyone who believes in the dignity of all persons and supports equality and justice for all,” Stewart said.

“The Human Rights Task Force condemns the message,” he said. “We can also say to those who are doing it that the good people of North Idaho will say emphatically ‘no’ to the message of hate.”