Antifa Cell Members Indicted in Prairieland Shooting

A federal grand jury in Fort Worth, Texas indicted nine North Texas Antifa Cell operatives, and seven more were charged by information, with offenses including rioting, using weapons and explosives, providing material support to terrorists, obstruction, and attempted murder of an Alvarado police officer and unarmed correctional officers at the Prairieland Detention Center on July 4, 2025, announced Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy E. Larson. 

Yesterday’s twelve-count indictment charges Cameron Arnold, a/k/a Autunm Hill, Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, a/k/a Meagan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, and Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada with multiple offenses for their roles related to the Prairieland attack.  The defendants are set for arraignment on December 3, 2025, in front of a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of Texas.

An information also filed yesterday charges Nathan Baumann, Joy Gibson, Susan Kent, Rebecca Morgan, Lynette Sharp, and John Thomas with one count of providing material support to terrorists.  A sixteenth defendant, Seth Sikes, was charged by information in late October with one count of providing material support to terrorists.  Guilty plea hearings for Baumann, Gibson, Thomas, Sharp, and Sikes will be held in front of a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of Texas next week, with Morgan set to plead guilty the following week.

The indictment and informations follow on the heels of federal complaints brought against the defendants in July soon after the July 4 attack.  According to the charges, the defendants were members of a North Texas Antifa Cell, part of a larger militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to an ideology that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law.  Antifa’s coordinated efforts involve obstructing Federal law through organized riots, violent assaults, and armed confrontations with law enforcement officers, increasingly targeting agents and facilities related to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement in opposition to the agency’s deportation actions.  The indictment alleges that most of the Antifa Cell involved in the Prairieland attack looked to Benjamin Song as a leader.  As alleged, Song acquired firearms that he distributed to co-defendants and recruited members at gun ranges and combat sessions he conducted, as well as from various ideologically aligned groups.  For example, defendants Ines Soto, Elizabeth Soto, and Savanna Batten are alleged to have been part of a group that created and distributed insurrectionary materials called “zines.”

The charges reflect that, late at night on July 4, at least eleven of the defendants rioted and attacked the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was using to house illegal aliens awaiting deportation.  The defendants dressed in “black bloc”—dark clothing with head and face coverings that concealed their identities—designed to hide each individual’s identity but also to aid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts by making members indistinguishable from one another to law enforcement.  According to the charges, after Antifa Cell members arrived at Prairieland, they began shooting off and throwing fireworks at the facility and vandalizing vehicles and a guard shack on Prairieland property.

According to the charges, an Alvarado police officer responded to the scene after correctional officers called 911. When the officer began issuing commands to defendant Nathan Baumann, Benjamin Song allegedly yelled, “get to the rifles!” and then opened fire on the officers, striking the Alvarado police officer in the neck as the unarmed correctional officers ducked and ran for cover. Police arrested most of the Antifa Cell shortly after the attack, many near the scene.  Benjamin Song escaped and remained at large with the help of others until his capture on July 15, 2025.

Collectively, the Antifa Cell allegedly acquired over 50 firearms in the Fort Worth/Dallas area prior to July 4. As alleged in the indictment, members used an encrypted messaging app to coordinate with each other that had auto-delete functions, permanently deleting some Antifa Cell members’ communications. They also used monikers in group chats to hide their identities, and some of the planning chats included only trusted participants.  Members in this limited group allegedly conducted reconnaissance and discussed what to bring to the riot, including firearms, medical kits, and fireworks.

The nine individuals indicted yesterday are charged with the following offenses:

• Riot, with the intent to commit an act of violence, involving conduct such as shooting and throwing fireworks and explosives, slashing tires on a government vehicle, spraying graffiti on property and vehicles, destroying a closed circuit camera, shooting at officers, and dressing in black bloc.
  • Defendants charged:  Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Benjamin Song, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto
• Providing Material Support to Terrorists, including property, services, training, communications equipment, weapons, explosives, personnel (including themselves), and transportation.
  • Defendants charged:  Arnold, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, E. Soto, and I. Soto
• Conspiracy to Use and Carry an Explosive, and Using and Carrying an Explosive, during a riot.
  • Defendants charged:  Arnold, Evetts, Song, Batten, Morris, Rueda, E. Soto, and I. Soto
• Attempted Murder of Officers and Employees of the United States, involving the unlawful attempt to kill with malice aforethought Correctional Officers-1 and 2, and an Alvarado Police Officer.
  • Defendants charged:  Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda
• Discharging a Firearm During, and in Relation to, and in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence, i.e., the attempted murder of two correctional officers and an Alvarado Police Officer.
  • Defendants charged:  Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda
• Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record, by transporting a box containing numerous Antifa materials, such as insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents and propaganda from Sanchez Estrada’s residence to a location in Denton, Texas, intending to conceal the box’s contents and impair its availability for use in a federal grand jury and federal criminal proceeding.
  • Defendant charged:  Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada
• Conspiracy to Conceal Documents and other objects that would implicate Maricela Rueda in the riot and shooting at the Prairieland facility.
  • Defendants charged:  Sanchez Estrada and Maricela Rueda

If convicted, Song, Arnold, Evetts, Morris, and Rueda each face a minimum penalty of ten years in federal prison and a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.  Batten, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto each face a sentence ranging from a minimum of ten years up to fifty years in federal prison.  Sanchez Estrada faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count.

The sole count of providing material support to terrorists brought in the information against Baumann, Gibson, Kent, Morgan, Sharp, Thomas, and separately, Sikes’s information, mirrors the material support offense charged in yesterday’s indictment.  If convicted, each of these defendants face a sentence of up to fifteen years in federal prison.

Charges brought by indictment and information are merely allegations of criminal conduct, not evidence.  All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 

“This is the first indictment in the country against a group of violent Antifa cell members,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Nancy E. Larson. “The charges the Grand Jury has leveled against these defendants, including material support for terrorists, address the vicious attack perpetrated by an anti-ICE, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, anarchist group.  I applaud the tenacious work of the FBI, ICE, our state and local law enforcement partners, and the prosecutors and staff in my office. They have tirelessly pursued justice in this case, and will continue to pursue justice in any cases like it. We are firm in our resolve to protect our law enforcement officers and federal facilities against organized domestic terrorist cells.”

“The updated charges in this case underscore the seriousness of the crimes committed at the Prairieland Detention Center on July 4. We would like to thank our law enforcement partners for assisting us with this investigation. This collaborative effort reflects our collective commitment to holding these individuals accountable for this coordinated attack,” said FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock.

“Four months ago, in an attempt to sow anarchy and chaos and to undermine the rule of law, a coordinated attack was carried out on the Prairieland Detention Center, leaving one of our local law enforcement officers injured and a community in disarray,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Dallas Acting Field Office Director Robert Cerna. “In response, the law enforcement community banded together to expose the cowardly thugs responsible for that heinous attack and hold them accountable.  Yesterday’s indictments are a first step in that process, as we continue to work collectively to ensure that justice is served.”

The investigation was conducted by the FBI—Dallas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Office (ICE ERO), ATF, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Alvarado Police Department, and the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Frank Gatto and Shawn Smith are prosecuting the case.