A federal jury in Fort Worth delivered guilty verdicts against all nine defendants charged in the July 2025 armed ambush of the Prairieland ICE detention facility near Alvarado, Texas. The Friday verdict closes a 12-day trial that featured more than 45 witnesses and over 210 evidentiary exhibits.
Eight of the nine defendants were found guilty on charges of riot and terrorism. The accused ringleader, Benjamin Hanil Song, was found guilty of attempted murder for his role in the shooting of an Alvarado police officer. A ninth defendant, Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, was found guilty of concealing and removing evidence. The jury continues to deliberate on one additional charge.
According to court documents, 20 to 30 rounds were fired at law enforcement officers during the attack. Song acquired the firearms used in the assault and distributed them to his co-defendants. The charges they faced tell the story: attempted murder of a federal officer, discharging a firearm during and in furtherance of a crime of violence, rioting, and providing material support to terrorists.
Song's eight associates convicted alongside him include Savanna Batten, Cameron Arnold, Daniel Rolando Sanchez-Estrada, Ines Soto, Elizabeth Soto, Maricela Rueda, Bradford Morris, and Zachary Evetts. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas described the operation as a militant enterprise with calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, Breitbart reports.
This was not a group of college activists who showed up with signs and got carried away. This was an organized, armed cell that targeted a federal facility, shot at police, and operated under an ideology that seeks to destroy the constitutional order. The jury saw the evidence and reached the only rational conclusion.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi wasted no time framing the verdict in its proper context:
"Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democrat-led cities — not under President Trump. Today's verdict on terrorism charges will not be the last as the Trump administration systematically dismantles Antifa and finally halts their violence on America's streets."
That statement carries weight because it rests on what just happened in a courtroom, not a press conference. A jury of citizens heard the evidence, weighed it over twelve days, and convicted every single defendant. The terrorism charges stuck. The attempted murder charge stuck. This is the justice system working the way it is supposed to work when the political will exists to use it.
For the better part of a decade, Americans watched Antifa-affiliated violence ripple through city after city while elected officials treated the movement as either a myth or a righteous cause. Buildings burned. Officers were assaulted. Journalists were attacked. The consistent refrain from the left was that Antifa was merely "an idea," not an organization, and certainly not a domestic threat worth treating seriously.
The Prairieland attack blew that fiction apart. You do not acquire firearms, distribute them to associates, organize an armed assault on a federal detention facility, and fire dozens of rounds at law enforcement because of an "idea." You do that because you are part of a coordinated militant operation. The jury agreed.
The broader pattern is worth noting. When political violence comes from the left, the institutional response has historically ranged from excuse-making to outright denial. Prosecutors declined cases. Mayors told police to stand down. Media outlets buried the story or reframed the perpetrators as sympathetic figures pushed to extremes by systemic injustice. That framework does not survive contact with a case like this one, where the facts are stark, the violence is undeniable, and the ideology behind it is explicitly revolutionary.
Bondi's promise that this "will not be the last" verdict on terrorism charges is not empty rhetoric. It is a statement of prosecutorial intent. The trial that began February 23 and ended with nine convictions sends a clear signal: armed political violence targeting federal facilities and law enforcement will be treated as what it is. Terrorism.
The defendants now face sentencing on charges that carry severe federal penalties. The jury's work is nearly done, with deliberation continuing on one remaining charge. But the broader work of holding politically motivated extremists accountable is just gaining momentum.
Nine people armed themselves, attacked a federal facility, and shot at a police officer. A Texas jury held every one of them responsible. That is not a headline. That is a precedent.
