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A group of<\/span> activists gathered outside the Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas last July 4 with fireworks and plans to mount more than a polite protest.<\/p>\n They were there for less than an hour before things took a turn: A police officer was wounded by a gunshot.<\/p>\n Only one member of the group is accused of pulling a trigger, but 19 people went to jail on state and federal charges. Attorney General Pam Bondi labeled<\/a> the defendants terrorists<\/a>, and FBI Director Kash Patel bragged<\/a> that it was the first time alleged antifa activists had been hit with terror charges.<\/p>\n Months later, the Trump administration recycled the label to smear Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Minneapolis residents who were shot and killed by federal immigration agents. They were supposedly dangerous left-wing agitators, in Pretti\u2019s case legally carrying what the government said was a \u201cdangerous gun<\/a>.\u201d The videos of Good and Pretti\u2019s killings disproved<\/a> the administration\u2019s lies.<\/p>\n Unlike the Minneapolis shootings, the full events at Prairieland were not caught on video. Instead, a jury in federal court will hear evidence against nine defendants at a trial starting next week, which will serve as the first major courtroom test of the Trump administration\u2019s push to label left-wing activists as domestic terrorists.<\/p>\n \u201cI wonder how they are going to make it stick when their attempts at framing Alex Pretti didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Court hearings in the case have taken place under heavy security, with police caravans whisking defendants to and from an art deco courthouse in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. Inside the courtroom, straight-backed officers maintain a perimeter.<\/p>\n The odds once looked long for the Prairieland group given the conservative jury pool and the seven defendants who pleaded guilty before trial, including several who are cooperating with the prosecution. The protests, crackdowns, and killings in Minneapolis, however, may have shifted perceptions of what happened seven months earlier in Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they were crafting this indictment, they came up with that there is such a thing as a \u2018north Texas antifa cell,\u2019\u201d said Xavier de Janon, a lawyer representing one defendant in state court. \u201cI wonder how they are going to make it stick when their attempts at framing Alex Pretti didn\u2019t work, fell flat on its face.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jurors in the Prairieland case will be faced with key questions about protest in the Trump era. Are guns at protests a precaution or a provocation? Can the government succeed in using First Amendment-protected literature, such as anarchist zines<\/a>, to win convictions? And how far can activists go when they believe their country is sliding into fascism?<\/p>\n Federal investigators and a support committee for the defendants offered starkly different takes on the purpose of the late-night gathering at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.<\/p>\n For the feds, it was a planned ambush of law enforcement staged with guns, black garb, and bad intentions. Prosecutors described the defendants as \u201cnine North Texas Antifa Cell operatives.\u201d Supporters of the defendants say the protest was an attempt to conduct a noise demonstration, of the sort that have since become common outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings in places like Chicago and Minneapolis.<\/p>\n The Prairieland facility, which was built to hold 700 people, housed over 1,000 by the spring of 2025<\/a>. The privately operated detention center was in the news again this week, when the family of a Palestinian woman detained there since last year on alleged visa violations said she had been hospitalized after weeks of deteriorating health.<\/a><\/p>\n On July 4 last year, a larger group of protesters had staged a traditional demonstration of the conditions inside the lockup. That night, a group of people who had conferred on an encrypted chat app arrived outside the detention center.<\/p>\n Around 10:37 p.m., the fireworks started flying, according to the testimony of an FBI agent at a pretrial hearing. Some of the group of a dozen or so slashed tires on cars in the parking lot near the detention center and sprayed \u201cICE Pig\u201d on one car.<\/p>\n Guards called 911. Local police showed up. Within minutes, an Alvarado police officer who answered the call had been shot in the neck.<\/p>\n The U.S. attorney\u2019s office alleges that the shooter was Benjamin Song, a former Marine Corps reservist who was a fixture in local left-wing organizations such as the Socialist Rifle Association and Food Not Bombs.<\/p>\n At a preliminary hearing in September, prosecutors painted a dramatic picture of the shooting: Minutes after police arrived, Song allegedly shouted \u201cget to the rifles\u201d and let loose with an AR-15 that had a modified, binary trigger designed to fire at a fast rate.<\/p>\n At the same hearing, however, defense attorneys poked holes in the government\u2019s narrative that the shooting had been planned.<\/p>\n Prosecutors\u2019 case that the group wanted to commit violence depends heavily on messages that members of the group allegedly sent through the encrypted messaging app, Signal, or at an in-person \u201cgear check\u201d before the action.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not getting arrested,\u201d Song allegedly said at one point.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys objected to the idea that such ominous-sounding statements were proof that the group planned an attack.<\/p>\n\n
Making Noise<\/strong><\/h2>\n