Lawful, Warranted, Reasonable Response Suit Seeks Justice Aryans Have Assaulted Us All; Let’S Fight Back.

When Temple Beth Shalom in Spokane celebrates a bar mitzvah or a major holiday, it hires extra security guards.

Like others targeted by Aryan Nations hatred, Jews living in the Inland Northwest are keenly aware of the threat this group poses. Along with African-American, Hispanic and gay residents, Jews often avoid North Idaho.

The danger they perceive is based not on wild imagination, but reality. That’s been underscored by a lawsuit filed Monday against the Aryan Nations by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On July 1, the suit alleges, Aryan Nations security guards conducted a terrifying assault.

According to the lawsuit, as many as six skinheads chased a mother and her son, Victoria and Jason Keenan, for two miles down a county road, firing at them with assault rifles. The provocation? The Keenans’ car backfired. The suit also says that the Aryans detained the Keenans and threatened to kill them.

Although one of the alleged participants has been charged criminally, that case won’t provide civil damages compensation for the Keenans. Nor does the criminal case strike at the power base - the Aryan Nations, the seedbed for this kind of activity for the last 25 years. Passing up the opportunity to sue the Aryan Nations over this episode would only heighten the sense of danger too many Inland Northwest residents already experience.

We must never hesitate to pursue a civil remedy simply because the defendants are part of a political group. This suit was not brought against the Aryans for their parade in Coeur d’Alene, their repugnant heil Hitler salutes or any other of their hateful, but protected, expressions. It will not infringe on their First Amendment rights. It will not stop them from speaking, writing or marching.

Instead, the suit seeks civil damages from an organization whose members are accused of assaulting and threatening the lives of others. If security guards from a downtown hotel had opened fire on the Keenans’ car, both the guard and the hotel itself similarly could be held liable.

For a quarter century, the Aryan Nations compound has been a magnet for Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, pulling them from all over the country. If this lawsuit winds up weakening this organization’s power and making it accountable for some of the damage it has done, that result can only strengthen the freedom and personal safety of all who live here.