The mother of one of the Patriot Front members who was arrested on Saturday on their way to crash a Pride event in Idaho is kicking him out of her home because he refused to cut ties with the white supremacist group.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Beast, Karen Amsden, the mother of alleged Patriot Front member Jared Michael Boyce, 27, said her son told her he was going camping for the weekend. She had no idea anything was amiss until she saw the news alert that members of the Patriot Front were arrested, and she just knew her son was a part of it.
“I saw this news story come up that said 31 members of a white supremacist group were arrested at a rally, and I just knew—I knew he was part of it,” she said.
31 Patriot Front members were detained after they were found packed into the back of a U-Haul truck with riot gear, as they prepared to crash a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. They were charged with conspiracy to riot.
Amsden said Boyce just appeared at her door on Sunday and told her that anonymous donors had bailed him and the other suspects out of jail. She’d had enough at that point and so she gave him an ultimatum.
“You can choose between Patriot Front and your family. And he’s like, ‘Well, I can’t quit Patriot Front.’ I’m like, ‘Well, then you’ve just chosen. So pack your stuff and get out of my house,’” Amsden said.
She is going public in hopes of sabotaging Boyce’s standing in the group since other attempts to get him to cut ties with Patriot Front have failed.
“I would love to do whatever I can to out him [as a Patriot Front member] so that he can’t be a part of it,” she said. “And that they don’t want him to be a part of their group because his mom has loose lips and a big mouth and he’s never going to get away with anything.”
Amsden, a licensed clinical social worker, said her son has been searching for a “connection” or “brotherhood” to fill a “void” in his life since his dad left years ago and came out as gay.
Boyce was married and living with his then-wife and their children in 2018 when he became involved with Patriot Front. Amsden said she warned him that he could get in trouble if he continues to associate with the group.
“He’s so misguided and bought into all their rhetoric. It just makes me sick,” she said. “This is not who I raised. This is not the example that was set for him.”
She told the Daily Beast that Boyce and his ex-wife share custody of their kids. Her grandchildren are “really the only reason” she continued her relationship with Boyce as his views became more repugnant.
