On July 2, 2022, Thomas Rousseau led a group of Patriot Front members in a march without a city permit along Boston’s historic Freedom Trail. Patriot Front members wore neck gaiters to conceal their identities and carried large homemade shields that could be used as weapons.
When encountering Charles Murrell III on the sidewalk, Patriot Front members shouted a racial slur, and then physically attacked him, pushing him against a street pole and beating him with their shields, feet, and fists.
This attack is a concrete example of the violence Patriot Front, and similar neo-Nazi groups, routinely perpetrate to intimidate minority groups and further their racist ideology. As an African-American man, Murrell was a target of this white supremacist group.
Human Rights First is proud to join the law firm of Foley Hoag in filing this lawsuit against Patriot Front, its leader Thomas Rousseau, and multiple other members of that hate group, as the attack is antithetical to America’s multi-cultural democracy and demands accountability.
The lawsuit, filed on August 8, 2023 in the United States District Court in Boston, alleges that the defendants conspired to interfere with Murrell’s civil rights, in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act (42 USC 1985(3)), the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, and other related state laws.
- On December 19, 2023, the court issued a Notice of Default to Patriot Front for failure to respond to the Complaint.
- Thomas Rousseau was served with the civil complaint on February 28, 2024.
Photos: © Boston Herald by Stuart Cahill & Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images