Mother Jones: Prairieland ICE Protesters Sentenced to Decades in Prison
Alex Nguyen for Mother Jones reports that, last week, eight protesters who the Justice Department accused of having connections to Antifa were sentenced to decades in prison over a shooting outside a Texas immigration detention center that wounded one police officer:
"The demonstrator who was convicted of shooting and wounded the officer, former US Marine Corps reservist Benjamin Song, was convicted of attempted murder in March and received a 100-year prison term. Seven other protesters received sentences ranging from 30 to 70 years.
US District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush nominee, said the defendants in what has become known as the Prairieland trial, didn’t participate in a protest but `an assault on democracy.'”
Justice Department prosecutors have used conspiracy charges in cases like Prairieland, where some of the defendants who received lengthy "sentences were not involved with the planning of the protest in question and left when guards at the facility asked them to."
The defendants protesting the Prairieland immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, denied that they were affiliated with antifa, a term for various left-wing activists and anti-fascist groups.
The Trump administration has deployed allegations of terrorism against ICE protesters. As reported here, the Justice Department last week charged 15 Minneapolis-area residents with a “conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers,” and secured a conviction on the same charges against three Spokane, Washington protesters.
