Overview
- Nine defendants face 65 charges under a 12-count indictment, with deliberations set to start Thursday morning in Fort Worth after lengthy instructions from Judge Mark Pittman.
- Prosecutors said Benjamin Song organized a planned ambush and shot Alvarado police Lt. Thomas Gross, arguing the group used “legal things to do something illegal” and that others could reasonably foresee the violence.
- The government pointed to black bloc clothing, cash purchases of fireworks, Faraday bags and encrypted Signal chats as indicators of planning, alongside rifles, fireworks and materials seized from homes and cars.
- Defense attorneys described the gathering as a fireworks noise demonstration in solidarity with detainees, challenged the credibility of cooperating witnesses, and noted the seized firearms were lawfully owned and often secured.
- In rebuttal, prosecutor Frank Gatto cited the Pinkerton rule to press conspiracy liability for the shooting and damage, in what the government characterizes as its first Antifa-linked domestic-terrorism prosecution.