Feds and defense attorneys lay out dueling narratives in North Texas ‘antifa’ trial

FORT WORTH, Texas (CN) — At the start of a highly anticipated trial in Fort Worth, Texas, Tuesday, a federal prosecutor and attorneys for several defendants laid out competing stories about an incident at an ICE facility last year that resulted in a police officer being shot.

The prosecution claims members of an "antifa cell" conspired to attack the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, which is used to hold people in immigration custody, on July 4 last year. Antifa, short for antifascist, is a term used to refer to a decentralized movement of activist groups that oppose fascism, racism and far-right extremism. President Donald Trump signed a controversial order last year designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, although no official organization exists.

"Make no mistake — there was nothing peaceful about what happened on July 4," Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith told the jury during opening statements.

The trial is widely seen as the first major test of the Trump administration's vow to prosecute antifa as an organized, violent terrorist group, with critics calling it an example of the administration attempting to criminalize dissent.

Nine defendants are on trial facing a variety of charges, including rioting, providing material support to terrorists, use and carry of an explosive, attempted murder of U.S. government employees and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.

The government claims in an indictment that members of a "North Texas antifa cell," including defendants Benjamin Song, Zachary Evetts, Meagan Morris (also referred to as Bradford Morris), Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Autumn Hill (also referred to as Cameron Arnold), Savanna Batten and Maricela Rueda approached the facility late at night, shooting fireworks at it and vandalizing property. As unarmed DHS correctional officers came outside to investigate and a responding Alvarado police officer arrived, prosecutors claim Song fired a rifle, hitting the police officer nonfatally in the neck.

Smith said it is the government's position that Hill, Evetts, Morris and Rueda are also liable for the shooting under Pinkerton v. United States, a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that a participant in a conspiracy can be held criminally liable for "reasonably foreseeable" crimes committed by co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy. He said it was "reasonably foreseeable" to those defendants that Song would shoot a police officer.

The final defendant in the case, Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, was not present at the event. He is charged with concealing documents after the fact. Other individuals arrested in connection with the incident have taken plea deals and are expected to testify for the government.

Attorneys for Song did not make an opening statement. Lawyers for other defendants said their clients did not intend any violence, describing the event, which they said was meant to be a "noise demonstration" where protesters shot fireworks into the air to show support for the people detained in the facility, as a peaceful protest gone wrong.

"The goal was to communicate to those held inside, 'You are not forgotten,'" an attorney for Evetts said.

Defense attorneys urged the jury to treat each defendant as an individual.

"In America, we don't prosecute people for being in association with other people," a lawyer for Batten said. He said his client "was there for the sole purpose of expressing her political beliefs, and in America, we don't punish people for that."