Federal lawsuit against Patriot Front aims to condemn white supremacist group to ‘bankruptcy and irrelevancy’

A lawsuit from a Black musician who was attacked in Boston targets dozens of members, including its leader

A federal civil rights lawsuit intends to diminish the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front and dozens of its members into “bankruptcy and irrelevancy” following a violent assault against a Black man who is at the centre of the challenge.

On 2 July, 2022, members of the white supremacist hate group allegedly beat Charles Murrell III with their shields, feet and fists during a march in Boston, according to the lawsuit filed in US District Court on 8 August.

“This attack left me with both physical and emotional injuries,” he said in a statement. “While I am still trying to heal, I hope that this healing will be broader than salving my own wounds.”

The challenge echoes a similar, successful case and subsequent multi-million dollar judgment against white nationalists involved with the lethal “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

One of the chief organisers of that event, white supremacist group Vanguard America, later “rebranded” as Patriot Front. Thomas Rousseau has functioned as a leader for both groups and is named as a defendant in the Boston case – along with 99 “masked and presently unidentified individuals” who marched in the streets and beat Mr Murrell.

Mr Murrell is represented by Human Rights First and Foley Hoag LLP.

“The law has prohibited racially motivated violence for more than 150 years, and this complaint seeks to use that law to its full extent to hold Patriot Front accountable for its conduct,” Foley Hoag partner Anthony Mirenda said in a statement announcing the case.

After the violence in Charlottesville, Patriot Front has been deemed responsible for the vast majority of white supremacist propaganda efforts in the years that followed, according to the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, which designates Patriot Front as a hate group.

Over the last few years, Patriot Front has made its physical presence known at demonstrations and rallies across the country. One month before the Boston attack, police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho arrested 31 members organizing in military-like formation in a Uhaul truck with plans to disrupt a LGBT+ Pride event with shields, metal flag poles and a smoke grenade.

Last month, five members of the group were sentenced to three days in jail after a jury convicted them of conspiracy to riot.

Amy Spitalnick, senior adviser on Extremism at Human Rights First and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, spearheaded legal efforts in the Charlottesville case, which underscored the substantial financial and operational consequences of coordinated civil rights abuses and hate campaigns.

“The Charlottesville lawsuit pushed leading extremists to bankruptcy and irrelevancy,” she said in a statement. “We hope to do the same to Patriot Front in this case – to make clear there will be consequences for their violent hate.”

On 2 July, 2022, roughly 100 members of the group, including Mr Rousseau, marched in a “flash demonstration” through downtown Boston with fascist flags and a banner with the phrase “Reclaim America”. Other than Mr Rousseau, the members used cloth coverings, sunglasses and hats to hide their faces and identities, a common tactic at other Patriot Front demonstrations, including the massa arrest in Idaho.

Charles Murrell III is suing members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front after an attack in Boston in 2022 (Human Rights First)

When the group encountered Mr Murrell, members used their shields to shove him on the sidewalk, pressed him against a concrete light post, “knocked him to the ground, and continuously hit and kicked him” for several minutes until law enforcement intervened, according to the complaint.

The attack was filmed and photographed by members of the press and public.

Mr Murrell was taken by ambulance to Tufts Medical Center and treated for lacerations to the head, hand and face, some of which required stitches, according to the complaint.

The musician and educator says the attack has adversely affected his ability to perform and he “has generally lost the will to write or perform music” in the wake of the attack, the filing states.

Meanwhile, Patriot Front has used images of the attack to “promote their group and advocate for similar in-person activity in the future,” according to the complaint.

“As a Black man and an educator, I feel like every Black and Brown child is my own,” Mr Murrell added. “If this lawsuit helps keep even one of them – one person – safe from violent white supremacists, some justice will have been served.”