Department of Justice determines Antifa cell attacked ICE facility in Texas
Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts were federally charged with providing material support to terrorists
Federal prosecutors charged two North Texas men with helping orchestrate a violent Fourth of July attack at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Alvarado, alleging the two were part of an “Antifa cell” that planned to target law enforcement officers with gunfire and explosives.
The indictment appears to be the first time a charge of material support for terrorism has been levied against alleged followers of the anti-fascist movement, following Donald Trump's declaration officially designating the movement as a domestic terrorist organization.
In this proceeding, Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts were charged federally with providing material support to terrorists, attempted murder of US officers and employees, and discharging a firearm in connection with a crime of violence.
According to the Justice Department indictment, on the night of July 4, several masked and black-clad individuals, some of them armed, arrived at the Prairieland ICE detention center, vandalizing vehicles and security cameras in the parking lot, according to authorities. When an Alvarado police officer attempted to confront a member of the group, an unknown number of people opened fire. At least one autonomous bullet struck the officer in the neck, killing her, police said.
In the indictment, filed in the Northern District of Texas, prosecutors describe Antifa as a “militant enterprise consisting of networks of individuals and small groups that adhere primarily to an revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideology that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement, and legal system.”
The Justice Department said in the indictment that “Antifa is a militant enterprise consisting of networks of individuals and small groups that adhere primarily to an autonomous revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideology that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement, and legal system.”
The indictment alleges that the group Arnold and Evetts were part of engaged in extensive preplanning before the incident and that Arnold trained others in firearms use and hand-to-hand combat.
The group was heavily armed with more than 50 firearms acquired in Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Dallas and elsewhere, according to the indictment.