Aryans Granted Downtown Parade Rerouting Event Violates Free Speech, Judge Rules

The Aryan Nations can have its parade down Sherman Avenue.

A federal judge ruled Thursday the racist group cannot be banned from marching down the city’s traditional parade route downtown. The last-minute ruling foiled the city’s attempt to move the Aryan parade to Ramsey Road north of downtown and left police scrambling to plan crowd control for Saturday’s planned march.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge said the decision by city officials to move the parade to Ramsey Road, which traverses the old city dump, infringed on the white supremacy group’s right of free speech.

“Even though the Ramsey Road route would allow the (Aryans) to achieve their original goal of a circular parade route, the route effectively removes their intended audience from the parade,” Lodge wrote. “The lack of any historical use of Ramsey Road as a parade route supports this court’s finding that the city is doing more than trying to provide security. … It is routing the parade based on the content of the (Aryans’) message.”

In moving the parade back to Sherman Avenue, the judge decided the circular route originally requested by the Aryans is not feasible. The court order allows the Aryans to parade down Sherman Avenue between Northwest Boulevard and 13th Street without a return loop.

The city spent $40,000 last winter to hire a constitutional law expert to overhaul its parade permit law to give officials the authority to regulate time, place and manner of parade. Half of the fee paid to Seattle-based attorney David Burman was donated by tourism and newspaper magnate Duane Hagadone.

Mayor Steve Judy and City Attorney Jeff Jones could not be reached for comment Thursday after the judge’s ruling.

At the Aryan headquarters north of Hayden Lake, leader Richard Butler had no immediate comment on the judge’s ruling.

A week ago, he predicted the American Civil Liberties Union, which intervened on behalf of the Aryan Nations, would prevail in clearing the way for the Aryans to march on the same street where other groups parade.

Forcing the Aryans to march on Ramsey Road was disregarding constitutional protections and treating “white Americans” like garbage, Butler said at the time.

For Butler and the Aryans, the court ruling is a victory, but it comes a week late for them to muster a sizable number of marchers.

Most of the estimated 150 to 200 participants who attended last weekend’s Aryan World Congress have returned to their homes throughout the United States and Canada.

An estimated 100 of those who attended, including several dozen skinheads and 18 Ku Klux Klan members from Texas, joined Butler last Saturday for a rally in Coeur d’Alene’s City Park.

Butler is expected to announce today whether he will muster a handful of followers to parade this Saturday or whether he will settle for the legal victory and remain home.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do at this time,” Aryan Nations chief of staff Michael Teague said moments after he learned of the court’s ruling.

“We’re still thinking about it,” Teague said.

The ACLU hailed Lodge’s decision as a First Amendment victory.

“It’s less a victory for the ACLU and the Aryans than it is a victory for free speech,” said Jack Van Valkenburgh, the Idaho ACLU’s executive director.

Meanwhile, police are scrambling to come up with a plan to manage the expected crowd along the parade route.

“We’ll be working hard (Thursday night) and throughout (today) to develop a plan to follow the judge’s decision,” Coeur d’Alene police Capt. Carl Bergh said.

Whatever plan police come up with, it will be without the help of other agencies, Bergh said. Members of a considerable multi-agency police force who teamed with city police last weekend during the Aryan Nations rally in City Park will be kept busy Saturday by a host of other activities.

A hot rod rally is planned in Post Falls and a motorcycle swap meet is scheduled at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. Coeur d’Alene police resources will be further drained by a planned human rights rally at North Idaho College that could draw 1,000 people and a girl’s softball tournament at McEuen Field.

“It was difficult for us to work through last weekend not knowing what would transpire when we had the resources, let alone try to work through this weekend without those other resources available to us,” Bergh said.

If a small contingent of Aryans do march, they will find themselves face to face with shouting protesters for a second weekend.

At least 100 anti-Nazi protesters from Seattle and at least that many from the Inland Northwest are expected in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday.

The protest is being headed by two groups, Anti-Racist Action (ARA) and United Front Against Fascism, which formed the Coalition Against Nazis.

“We are definitely going to be protesting on Sherman Avenue,” Guerry Hodderson, of the Coalition Against Nazis, said from Seattle.

“We hope that the people of Coeur d’Alene and Spokane and the rest of the region will join us,” she said.

The Coalition Against Nazis, she said, is inviting the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations “to join us in the streets, protesting Butler and his men.”

“It’s time they came to Sherman Avenue and took a stand,” she said.

Under the overhauled ordinance, city officials granted the Aryan Nations a permit to parade down Ramsey Road on Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m. Butler had requested a July 3 parade down Sherman Avenue, proposing to begin and end the march at City Park.

The white supremacy group filed a motion Tuesday seeking a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction allowing them to march down Sherman Avenue. Aryan Nations leaders accused city officials of shifting the parade route to “an obscure and, symbolically, degrading location” along Ramsey Road because of content.

Lodge granted the Aryan Nations’ motion for a preliminary injunction despite the group’s last-minute appeal.

Last summer, 92 Aryans turned out for their touted “100 man march” to parade down Sherman Avenue. The 28-minute parade drew about 1,000 spectators and 500 protesters.

City officials cited safety, traffic and parking concerns, not censorship, as its reasons for moving this year’s parade route to Ramsey Road. They pointed out the property is now home to a city park, several sports fields and an apartment complex.

“Avoiding annoyance and inconvenience are not reasons that amount to the substantial governmental interests necessary to regulate speech,” Lodge wrote. “The city has recently handled much larger groups parading or attending activities downtown and this does not justify moving the parade to Ramsey Road.”

Despite the change in parade routes, one police plan will remain: separating marchers and protesters.

“There will be barrier tape at either location,” Bergh said. “It is now a misdemeanor in the city of Coeur d’Alene to go through that tape. Please, anybody that is intending to come to this event, regardless of location, please stay behind the barrier tape.”