More than three years after members of a neo-Nazi group disrupted a Drag Story Hour event at a café in Concord, New Hampshire, the state’s attorney general announced a settlement with the group’s leader, Christopher Hood.
Under the terms of the consent decree, Hood, a Massachusetts resident and founder of the Nationalist Social Club-131 (NSC-131), agreed to pay $2,500 and perform 250 hours of community service for violating the state’s anti-discrimination law, which explicitly prohibits harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella (R) said the consent decree resolves the state’s legal action against Hood and other members of NSC-131 and demonstrates its commitment to holding the group accountable for its “abhorrent and disgraceful” actions.
“Groups like NSC-131 are not welcome in this state, and that’s what this resolution is intended to say,” Formella said at a press conference announcing the settlement.
The incident at the center of the case occurred in June 2023, when two dozen NSC-131 members swarmed the Teatotaller — since rebranded as Totally Tea + Coffee — a privately owned café that markets itself as a “queer hipster oasis.” They were protesting a Drag Story Hour featuring Boston-based drag queen Juicy Garland reading aloud from children’s books.
Videos of the event show masked NSC-131 members chanting and giving Nazi salutes outside the café, shouting homophobic slurs, wielding anti-LGBTQ signs, and banging on the shop’s windows to intimidate those inside.
Concord police did not initially make any arrests. Six months later, Formella’s office filed civil complaints against Hood and 19 unidentified members of NSC-131 who allegedly orchestrated the protest. The complaints alleged that the group had violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by “attempting to coerce, intimidate, or compel a place of public accommodation to engage in unlawful discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity.”
The case was delayed multiple times, with prosecutors citing the group’s refusal to comply with court orders or turn over evidence, including videos recorded by its members, during the discovery process.
In October 2024, the Merrimack County Superior Court denied a motion from attorneys for the NSC-131 members to dismiss the case, ruling that the state had sufficiently alleged violations of its anti-discrimination law. A trial scheduled for earlier this spring was ultimately postponed.
Last week, the parties entered into the consent decree. If Hood fails to comply with the court’s order, he will be required to pay an additional $7,500.
The other NSC-131 members, who were never identified, are also subject to the decree. It orders them to “cease and desist from unlawful discriminatory practices,” prohibits them from engaging in discriminatory or bias-motivated conduct, and requires them to remain at least 250 feet from any Teatotaller Café location and avoid contacting the business’s owners or employees.
Formella said in a press release that NSC-131 had ceased operations in New Hampshire as a result of the litigation. According to WBUR, Hood also informed Formella’s office through his attorney that he had no intention of continuing his role with NSC-131 and that the group was now “essentially defunct.”
“This case is about one simple principle: the law applies equally to everyone, and every person is entitled to equal protection under the law,” Formella said in a statement. “No individual or organization has the right to threaten, intimidate, or coerce a New Hampshire business into violating the law or denying lawful access based on protected characteristics.
“The defendants have admitted their conduct violated New Hampshire’s Law Against Discrimination, accepted significant court-ordered consequences, and are permanently prohibited from future unlawful discriminatory conduct,” he continued. “This resolution delivers accountability and sends the message that organized hate group activity that violates the law will not be tolerated.”
New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte has signed a bill requiring teachers and other school employees to answer parents' questions about their children's health, well-being, behavior, and identity "completely and honestly."
Under the new law, educators must respond to a parent's written questions about their child within 10 business days without omitting any pertinent information. The State Board of Education must also update its educator code of ethics and code of conduct to reflect the disclosure requirements.
Teachers and staff who fail to respond to parental requests within the required time frame may face disciplinary action. The law provides two exceptions: when disclosure is prohibited by state or federal law, or when an educator has made a "good faith determination" that disclosure would put the student "at imminent risk" of abuse or neglect by a parent, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin. In the latter case, the educator must report the suspected risk to the local superintendent and deny the parent's request in writing.
German police shot and killed a 21-year-old man on July 26, a day after he allegedly drove a minivan into a crowd in Berlin's Tiergarten park, crashed into a tree, and attacked several people with a machete.
The crash occurred around 10 p.m. on July 25, just a few hundred yards from Berlin's annual Christopher Street Day celebration, one of Europe's largest Pride events. Police said the victims appeared to include Pride attendees and others who were in the park.
Authorities told Reuters that one person was killed and 29 others were injured, many in the machete attack.
An LGBTQ organizer suffered a black eye after a man struck her in the face with a flagpole at a Pride event in Cary, North Carolina.
Sara Buxton, owner of The Night Market Company, which curates open-air markets throughout North Carolina's Triangle region, was hosting the Alphabet Soup Pride Market at Downtown Cary Park on June 13.
In a video posted to Instagram, Buxton said the event had been successful until a shirtless man she described as an "agitator" began running through the crowd carrying an American flag on a metal flagpole.
Buxton said she asked the man to put on a shirt before re-entering the event. She alleges he responded by striking her in the face with the flagpole while hurling homophobic slurs.
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