Aryans Stroll Through Courthouse

Tired of getting little reaction outside, three Aryan Nations members decided to take a little stroll Tuesday afternoon through the Kootenai County Courthouse.

Their exercise put several Kootenai County deputies on alert while they guarded the courtroom. Inside, attorneys started calling witnesses in the civil trial attempting to bankrupt Richard Butler and the Aryan Nations.

Jere Brower, 24, and two other unidentified Aryans walked nervously through the metal detector and then started handing out racist literature.

They handed a copy to Bill Keenan, who was waiting outside the courtroom where his ex-wife, Victoria, and their son, Jason Keenan, sat in the trial.

Bill Keenan took the flier and ripped it into pieces in front of the Aryans before walking over and throwing the paper away in a trash can.

One Aryan turned to the other and said: “There’s no love lost there.”

Keenan hoped his gesture would insult the Aryans.

“They have every right to be here just like I do,” Keenan said. “They made a statement by hanging out. I made a statement by tearing (the flier) up.”

The Aryans then walked over and stared at Scott Dabbs, a witness and former Aryan security guard.

Deputies surrounded Dabbs, who wore a black uniform, dark glasses and a black baseball hat that read “Security” across the top.

The group of deputies moved Dabbs - a key witness against the Aryans - down the hall, but the Aryans followed. They didn’t say anything to Dabbs, but whispered to each other.

Eventually, the Aryans left the courthouse and gathered outside on Garden Avenue where the number of police had dropped by half from Monday. But, the Aryan presence quadrupled from two to eight.

One of those Aryans was Mike McQueeney, who drove to Coeur d’Alene from Mercer, Wis., to support Butler and protest against Irv Rubin, the leader of the Jewish Defense League from Los Angeles.

McQueeney said he and Rubin supporters scuffled two years ago on a Jerry Springer show titled “Klan-frontation.”

“He’s one of the most hated men in America,” McQueeney said of Rubin. “I don’t mean any physical harm to the guy. I just believe in different things than him.”

After the court adjourned for the day, Rubin yelled at Butler as his Aryan followers drove him away in a Ford diesel van that coughed smoke.

“Loser! Loser! Loser!” Rubin yelled as Butler rode away.

A Coeur d’Alene officer joked about the pollution puffing out of Butler’s van, which replaced the 1976 silver Cadillac that spewed fluid onto the street Monday.

“I told somebody that they aren’t going to bomb us, they are going to asphyxiate us,” the officer quipped.