Watch CBS News

Boise Police on alert as skinhead festival approaches

(AP) BOISE, Idaho - Idaho authorities say the Boise mayor's office is fielding numerous complaints about a neo-Nazi music festival planned for early October.

A Boise Police Department sergeant says authorities have been on alert since advertisements for Hammerfest 2012 surfaced online.

KTVB-TV reports the white supremacist group Hammerskin Nation plans to hold the event Oct. 6 near Boise.

According to the SITE Monitoring Service, a private intelligence firm that searches the Internet for extremist activity, Hammerskin Nation is a skinhead group rooted in Texas. The gunman who killed six worshippers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last month described himself as a member.

Former neo-Nazi T.J. Leyden says he previously recruited for the group with events like Hammerfest.

Leyden famously left the movement in 1996 and has promoted tolerance ever since.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.