A HISTORY OF HATE
IN INDIANA, PA
Indiana, Pennsylvania is a hub of diversity in a sea of adversity. With IUP being a major hub for students of different backgrounds, it comes with having to navigate a difficult social situation when the wants of local residents and the needs students clash.
Disclaimer: every single piece of evidence on this page was either sourced from witnesses from the community, or personally photographed and investigated by myself. All allegations are alleged, until proven otherwise.
Also, I adamantly refuse to use AI for this project or any other projects I'm involved in. Everything in this article is true, to the extent of my knowledge
Each red dot represents a sticker, there are 13 in total.
July 10th, 2019
Patriot Front posts stickers around downtown Indiana, PA
On or around July 10th, 2019, a well known white supremacist group called the Patriot Front posted anti-immigrant and racially charged stickers around the 700 and 800 blocks of Water Street and Philadelphia Street.
No further reports were produced, nor were any suspects identified.
July 12th, 2019
Counter protesters show up with Trump signs at IRMC Park
Trump supporters show up in opposition to a "Close the Camps" protest organized by local Indiana County Democrats. "Close the Camps" was a slogan in response to the wrongful detention of immigrant children and their families at the southern border and the abuses being reported in such facilities.
Of course, they claim to love children, but not the children the US government locked in cages.
February 5th, 2021
"The Masked Patriot"
Starting around February of 2021, a masked man dressed in revolutionary war attire and carrying a "Don't Tread on Me" flag began making appearances around Philadelphia Street and other areas of Indiana, PA.
Originally, he would just walk up and down the sidewalks on both sides of the street, but he eventually graduated to riding a horse down Philadelphia Street, still carrying the large flag.
Conspiracy Pirate
The Masked Patriot handed me a paper, explaining his position on the 2020 Election. I've posted a photo of the original paper, and posted the text below.
Joe Pittman 41* District
618 Philadelphia St, Indiana, PA 15701 724-357-0151
Look up his name on line to email him.
James Struzzi 62 * District
550 Philadelphia St. Indiana, PA 15701 724-465-0221
Look up his name online to email him.
Ask them why they voted for Act 77 in Oct. 2019 (before covid) to weaken election laws without the PA constitution required vote by the People on the ballot?
Ask them why they voted updating Act 77 in the spring of 2020, under pretext of covid, to flood the state with unsolicited ballots to everyone, which increases the voter fraud. There was no reason as there was plenty of time to request absentee ballots back in the Spring or Summer?
These are illegal, undemocratic and in violation of PA State Law as any election law change must be voted on twice in the legislature, then placed in two large newspapers in each county, then placed on the Ballot for the People to decide. Ask why the Republicans disenfranchised their constituents by not following State Law?
Demand the repeal of all the new undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional last minute laws the Governor, Sec. of State, and Democrat majority on the PA Supreme Court made to include:
1. Drop boxes, so people are not held to mail fraud which happens when you cheat through the mail.
2. Extra days to count the votes. (Until you get the vote count you want).
3. Signatures don't have to match. (The only reason for this is to cheat.)
4. Smudged or no post mark dates on mail- ins would be counted.
All these last minute election law changes were done by the governor and his cronies without them being voted on twice in the legislature, posted in two newspapers in each county and voted on by The People as required by PA law. There is no pandemic exception to make election law changes without We the People's consent by referendum on the ballot. This is election Fraud and both parties participated. There are Republicans in the State house who wanted to go back to the good old boy days and agreed to this to oust rump and We the People who he served, we have no doubt. Demand people are fined or jailed for such criminal violations of our sacred vote.
The election was a FRAUD and we were Disenfranchised. Four states did this, which is enough to overturn the fraudulent election without looking at one fraudulent ballot or machine.
Demand nothing else gets done until the legislature gets emergency powers to check a governors emergency powers day for day and only for 10 days, and without touching election laws.
He was eventually identified by members in a public Facebook forum as Mike Hartle, owner of a local landscaping company. To further confirm, we googled "mike hartle indiana pa" and the first listing to pop up was a listing for Mike's Tree Service. Further investigation (as in, I clicked another search result), showed Mike Hartle's address to be the same as Mike's Tree Service.
*Legal disclaimer: This information was easily accessible and publicly available on multiple free people-finder sites.
March 24th, 2024
Neo-nazi's Start Fight with
Downtown Indiana Restaurant Owner
In March of 2024, a local organization was raising funds for the Indiana Pride Festival by hosting a Benefit Gala at the Downtown Indiana Theater. The show included drag performances by multiple local and outside performers.
As far as we know, this was not the Patriot Front or an organized group of that magnitude, but it would not be a surprise if some of these people also participate in such organizations. The signs held by the neo-nazis include things like "Defend our children" and "no tolerance for LGBT perversion." It was later confirmed by Indiana Borough Police that three of the participants were locals, and the other three were from outside of Indiana. However, no names were released.
In this first video, taken by me, you can see a very large Confederate flag being flown by one of the protesters. The protester is also making an infamous gesture called a "Sieg Heil." It is a German phrase meaning "hail victory" that was a notorious and widely used slogan of the Nazi Party in Germany. It was typically used in conjunction with the Nazi salute (a gesture involving a stiff, raised right arm).
Once news started spreading online of the presence of the neo-nazis on Philadelphia Street, some counter protesters showed up to help defend our LGBTQ+ community members.
After a short time, the owner of the Coney Restaurant, Tim McQuaide, came outside along with a few employees and proceeded to get into a verbal altercation with the group. He asked the group to move off of the sidewalk directly in front of his business, as the restaurant was in the middle of lunch service. In a video provided by a witness, you can see Tim and his employees talking to the group for a few seconds before, as it appears, one of the masked men threw a punch at Tim and others started to surround them. At that moment, the Indiana Borough Police arrive on scene and diffuse the situation. No charges were filed.
Video analysis:
At approximately 4 seconds, you can see Steve Holliday, technical director of the Indiana Theater, walk up to the group from the left.
One moment later, you can see Tim and a few of the employees of the Coney approach the group from the same side. You can see the white chef jackets the employees are wearing, identifying the employees versus the protesters. You can also see Tim himself standing in the center of the group of men, with white hair and glasses.
At approximately 26 seconds, you see Tim's head disappear behind the others standing in front of him, and the whole group starts to shuffle and proceed to push and shove each other. From witness statements, one of the masked men threw the punch at Tim first. We were told later he did not press charges.
The reaction from the IUP student population was one of shock, disgust, and rightful anger. On a popular app called YikYak, where users can post in their school's feed anonymously, we see comments illustrating why it's important for community leaders to stand up and make it known this type of activity is not welcome here. Our student population is a major contributing economic factor in our area, and we should be doing everything in our power to make sure Indiana is safe for everyone.
Whenever there are instances of hate like this, we, as a community, need to do better to make it know that everyone is welcome here. Hate will not be tolerated and we will do everything we can to root out the evil.
Unfortunately, this will not be the last, or even second or third to last time our community will be harassed by these neo-nazi groups.
June 8th, 2024
2nd Annual Indiana Pride Festival gets a visit from the Patriot Front
The Patriot Front is probably one of the most well-known and best organized white supremacist groups across the country. They have operations in every state and a growing network of recruits. We won't go into too much detail about the Patriot Front, as there is already a lot of information about them online. We will link a few relevant articles at the end of this section for continued reading.
The Patriot Front was founded by Thomas Rousseau after the "Unite the Right" rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. This became one of the most violent extreme right-wing rallies in US history, after a white supremacist drove his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing one of them and injuring 19 others. This rally was attended by multiple right-wing extremist, white supremacist groups, including the modern-day Ku-Klux-Klan. Some participants disavowed the violence, while others considered it to be necessary. The extremists who were okay with the escalating violence splitered off from their groups to form the Patriot Front. Rest in Peace, Heather Heyer.
The Patriot Front also has a website you can visit, where they post information about their recent activities. As far as we know, the group that is active in Indiana is known as Network 16. A video below was saved from their Telegram channel. The Patriot Front and other extremist groups frequently use apps like Telegram, which offer encrypted messaging, so they can disseminate their hateful propaganda without being flagged, as they would be on traditional social media sites. We do want to emphasize that while some people or groups use software like Telegram for nefarious purposes, a lot of social activists use it as well as a way to organize resistance movements, while evading they prying eyes of law enforcement.
We plan on releasing a more detailed report on Patriot Front activity in Downtown Indiana, PA in a separate article.
September 14th, 2024
Stormfront gets run out of town by community members
On this evening, a beautiful Saturday night was interrupted by yet another group of white supremacists chanting and marching down Philadelphia Street. These particular men appear to be associated with the group Stormfront.
Stormfront is one of the oldest and longest-running white supremacist websites in the history of the internet. The site was created in 1995 by former Ku Klux Klan leader Don Black. The group was chanting phrases such as "white power" and "white lives matter", which got the attention of patrons dining in nearby restaurants. Approximately 15-20 individuals emerged from the surrounding businesses and began to harass and chase the group of neo-nazis down the street, telling them they're not welcome here and need to get the f*ck out.
The group made their way from 7th Street, all the way down to 4th Street Sheetz, and back up the other side of Philadelphia Street. The borough police did not arrive to diffuse the situation until they were all the way back at the 7th and Philly Streets intersection.
Now, this particular event was a little different because we have since identified one of the masked men as Aidan Harding, a resident of Glenwillard, Pennsylvania. Our buddy Aidan here has a long history of white supremacist and anti-semitic behavior.
As they say, when it comes to white supremacists: every accusation is a confession!
What's super ironic is that while this Stormfront group was disturbing our town, they kept talking about how they have families and children to protect, particularly against LGBTQ+ "indoctrination." Well, in early 2025, Aidan was charged with possession of child sexual abuse material. According to WTAE, via the federal Department of Justice, "a single count of possession of child sex abuse materials was filed against 20-year-old Aidan Harding on Jan. 27.[2025] During an investigation in December, officers said they found Harding had possession of materials depicting the sexual abuse of prepubescent minors."
Look at that? Another white supremacist/neo-nazi claiming they want to protect the children, yet they themselves are the ones abusing them. We hope Aidan gets the harshest punishment possible, and never shows his face in this town again.
Read the Department of Justice's report on Aidan here:
Crescent Township Resident Charged with Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Materials
December 8th, 2024
Extremely racially charged and anti-semitic
stickers are posted around Downtown Indiana
I was notified by a friend that there had been another round of stickers posted all along Philadelphia Street, but this time they reached a new level of depravity. These seem to be from members
I will not be providing photos of every sticker as they are truly so disgusting, I do not want them to exist on this site. I've included some of the more "tame" stickers that were posted. Notice that one of them says, "Nazis for Trump."
Not much other information was collected about this incident. The Indiana Borough Police conducted an investigation, but I have not heard anything of anyone being charged in relation to the to the incident, with which they could be charged with hate crimes or vandalism.
If you are a witness to these crimes or think you may have any information that could help identify the individuals that did this, please don't hesitate to report it to the Indiana Borough Police. You can also report hate crimes directly to the FBI.
June 14th, 2025
3rd Annual Indiana Pride Festival gets another visit from the Patriot Front
Once again, the Patriot Front had interrupted a beautiful and welcoming event, hosted by a local LGBTQ+ organization. For people claiming how important family is to them, they apparently don't have anything better to do on a beautiful June day besides harassing the local queer commmunity. Just as the year before, they show up to harass and intimidate community members while they hide their faces like the cowards they are.
As stated previously, we are going to create a separate article that goes into more detail about the Patriot Front. I've linked some related articles below:
November 15th, 2025
Ku-Klux-Klan disperses flyers
in Indiana Borough
A lot of people were shocked to see modern day KKK flyers being distributed around town, but it shouldn't come as a shock, especially if you've been paying attention to every other incident I've written about here. Once again, we have not heard any additional information about the incident or if the perpetrators had been identified. They tend to do these operations in the middle of the night while its dark in order to evade people that might stop them.
If you ever see flyers of this kind distributed near you, it's best to leave them in place and notify the police so that they can conduct an investigation. If you have any additional information about this particular incident, please reach out to the Indiana Borough Police or PA State Police.