City Council Meeting in Leith, N.D., Disrupted by Drunken Neo-Nazi
A white supremacist who moved to the tiny North Dakota town of Leith two weeks ago was forcibly removed from a city council meeting last weekend after he arrived drunk and began confronting town residents.
Law enforcement officers were called to remove Kynan Dutton, 29, last Friday as officials were reviewing a moratorium (later approved) on new construction until the community can pass zoning and building codes, . According to those who were present, Dutton was confrontational, profane and making racist comments to people.
鈥淚鈥檝e never heard insults so profane, especially with kids present,鈥� councilman Lee Cook told the Tribune. 鈥淚t was way off the scope.鈥�
The moratorium is a direct result of a white supremacist plan to take over the town and build a 鈥渞acially conscious,鈥� all-white community. The plan, first discovered by Hatewatch, began when Craig Cobb started quietly buying properties last year to encourage a flood of white nationalists to move to Leith and take over city and county government. Town officials since have struggled to control the situation in any way they can.
鈥淚f they want an influx of people and double the population, we need some kind of organization to go with it,鈥� Leith Mayor Ryan Schock warned.
Officials hired attorney Tom Kelsch to prepare the moratorium, update ordinances and create zoning and land-use documents 鈥� all of which have been have been absent for years 鈥� to prevent people from moving into the many abandoned buildings Cobb owns.
Keith Johnson, administrator of the Custer District Health Unit, told the Tribune that there were no legal means to force Cobb or anyone to put water and sewer in his residence because neither Grant County nor Leith has standard building codes. State plumbing codes define how water and sewer should be installed but do not specify that they are required, Johnson said. The moratorium is designed to give the town time to fix that.
, an Iraq war veteran, and his wife, Deborah 鈥� members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement 鈥� were the first to answer Cobb鈥檚 call. They moved from Oregon to Leith on Oct. 5 with their five children and into a two-story home owned by Cobb. The home has no running water or sewer, and Dutton is using space heaters as the temperature turns.
