After a three week jury trial, the nine activists were all found guilty of a slew of criminal charges in March, stemming from a Fourth of July protest at an immigrant detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, south of Fort Worth.
The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.
Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, and Elizabeth Soto were sentenced to 50 years in prison. Maricela Rueda, another demonstrator, was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Benjamin Song, who fired the gun at the police officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison. The other protesters were continuing to be sentenced Tuesday morning.
Since the charges in the case, the government has brought a number of similar prosecutions against activists. Earlier this month, prosecutors filed criminal conspiracy charges against 15 activists in Minneapolis who allegedly interfered with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in performing their duties. A federal jury in Spokane, Washington, found three protesters guilty of conspiracy for participating in a 2025 protest at an ICE facility. A similar case in Chicago against protesters fell apart after it was revealed there was misconduct before grand jurors.
It’s absurd that they were able to be lumped together into a conspiracy. The people were only associated in the sense that they were attending the same protests and had texted one another.
Most of these people are only guilty of misdemeanor vandalism. Elizabeth Soto even left the scene when instructed.
However, one guy shot a police officer and the government was somehow able to prosecute them as if they were a single group (‘antifa’) as if they were all the shooter and, in addition, all of the charges were run consecutively. Typically if you have a bunch of charges you serve them concurrently, i.e. if you’re sentenced on multiple charges to 5yrs, 8yrs, 3yr, you’d only serve 8 years and not 16 years.
That’s pretty chilling, if you attend a protest where there is violence you could be charged as part of a ‘terrorist group’ and given life in prison.
Shitholy states made a bunch of shitty laws around 2018 or so, in response to the standing rock protests and their like, criminalizing protest in effect.
This is not the article but search engines don’t work anymore, hopefully it covers the information. The Intercept’s search function couldn’t find it’s own fucking dick. We are reliant on search engines that no longer provide us what we ask for, and we are doing nothing about it. But I digress.
https://theintercept.com/2021/01/21/anti-protest-riot-state-laws/
I recall that.
Florida made it a felony to step off the sidewalk onto a road during a protest.