The word was out: Antifa was coming for the Winco in Coeur dAlene.

At least, thats what Brett Surplus hunting TV show host, Idaho state Senate write-in candidateand a former police officer and sheriff's deputy was ready for on the evening of June 1.

And so Surplus stands in the Winco parking lot, dressed in a tactical vest and armed with his AR-15. It wasn't vigilantism, he believed. It was patriotism.

He pans his camera to show a crapton of Idaho boys he estimates about 150 armed with an arsenal of high powered weapons. And he says he's already had success.

Facebook video screenshot

Brett Surplus

"Just so you know, if you're planning on coming over here and trying to be a piece of trash over in my city, feel free. Because we will unleash the beast," Surplus boasts. "Freakin' slugs for thugs, all the day long. And Ill take your damn crowbar. Bring it. This aint Spokane."

Today, his Facebook live video thats racked up more than 28,000 views. There ain't nothin' that's going to happen," he continues. "Try to come over here. Ill take the A out of your tifa in a heartbeat.

And then he says he hears that five more vans are coming down the freeway.

"Sounds like we're going to have company," he says. "I'm going to see if we can ruin some people's days real quick... I think it may get hinky."

Sam Rowland, a progressive Army veteran who showed up supporting Black Lives Matter in the Coeur dAlene Winco, says that antifa had become an obsession in North Idaho.

And so that made it all the more interesting when someone shows up who looks a lot like witch: A protester with a crowbar on his belt loop, walked up to Surplus and Rowland, wearing wearing flannel, an Ice Cube T-shirt, and a skull mask. And on the mask, hes drawn three diagonally facing arrows, the "iron front" symbol often used by antifa activists.

"The minute I saw it, I knew in my gut this stupid shit was going to happen," Rowland says.

Antifa far-left mostly anonymous activists who take a militant approach to opposing who they see as racist or fascist groups have brawled repeatedly with far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer in liberal havens like Portland and Berkeley.

And yet for years after Trump's election, the right-wing rumor mill churned out claims that antifa activists or even super soldiers were also plotting to hold riots in tiny towns, like North Idaho's Bonner's Ferry.

Year after year, the antifa riots never arrived. But this year, when some protests over the murder of George Floyd turned violent and destructive, it fell neatly into that ready-made narrative.

Surplus says he saw the rumors that antifa was driving Mercedes Benz vans with foreign plates. He claims that antifa communicates using PlayStation 4 gaming systems, because they know they're being watched. He claims antifa "scouts" showed up to check out the June 1 protest Winco event, though he doesn't show any evidence. He claims he has his sources inside law enforcement, but won't say who.

As the Intercept recently revealed, the FBI was internally sharing the claim that "antifa" protesters were supposedly traveling from Spokane to Coeur d'Alene to protest, and then supposedly planned to road trip to Minneapolis. So far, nothing has been released to substantiate this report.

In fact, Detective Mario Rios with the Coeur dAlene Police Department says his department never had any actionable intelligence that antifa or other radicals were traveling to Coeur dAlene

The ISP has NOT intercepted a semi loaded with people and weapons, the Idaho State police wrote in a tweet. This is a lie being spread on social media.

And yet, the day before the June 1 rally at the Winco Coeur d'Alene, Spokane's rally had been marred by violence, looting and vandalism and the Spokane County Sheriff blamed antifa with absolute certainty. Couer d'Alene noticed.

What had taken place over in Spokane, everybody was thinking the same thing was coming, Surplus tells the Inlander.

Except this time, as Surplus and dozens of other right-wingers stand outside Winco near a handful of Black Lives Matter protesters, it looks like antifa had shown up.

Link:

The Man in the Antifa Mask: Who he is and why he regrets showing up at a Coeur d'Alene protest with a crowbar - Pacific Northwest Inlander