U.S. Justice Department brings first terrorism case tied to its Antifa crackdown

The Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where on July 4, prosecutors allege, a group ambushed corrections and police officers, creating a distraction with fireworks and graffiti before firing upon officers with semiautomatic rifles. (Mark David Smith/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)

The U.S. Justice Department brought its first federal terrorism case in the Trump administration’s crackdown on Antifa Wednesday, alleging that two people connected to the left-wing ideology participated in a coordinated attack on a federal immigration detention facility.

Prosecutors accuse Zachary Evetts and Cameron Arnold, who also goes by the name Autumn Hill, of being members of an “Antifa Cell” that used vandalism and fireworks to draw law enforcement officers out of an immigration detention facility near Fort Worth, Texas, and into the sights of two shooters positioned in a line of trees across the street.

The indictment is a major step in the administration’s campaign against Antifa, which they say wants to violently challenge the federal government and Trump’s supporters.

Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization last month.

Until the case against Evetts and Arnold was unsealed Thursday, it was unclear how federal prosecutors planned to legally define Antifa as a terrorist organization. Antifa is largely thought of as more of an ideology than an organized group, CNN has previously reported.

Prosecutors answered that question in court documents, describing Antifa as a “militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups” who have “espoused insurrection” and propose violent attacks against the US government.

Lawyers for Arnold and Evetts didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

Late into the night of July 4, a group of roughly a dozen individuals began shooting fireworks and spray-painting cars and structures at the detention facility, prosecutors say. Around the same time two correctional officers at the facility began to approach the group, a local police officer arrived responding to 9-11 calls about the incident, court filings say.

Shortly after the officer got out of his vehicle, one of the members of the group opened fire from a line of trees across the street, shooting him in the neck, prosecutors say. The officer survived the wound.

Another member of the group began to fire at the officers and, after shooting 20 to 30 rounds, the group dispersed and fled the scene, court filings say.

Detectives later said they determined that both rifles used in the shooting were purchased by ex-Marine Benjamin Hanil Song, who has been charged with attempted murder of a federal officer. Fourteen people were charged in relation to the shooting, including some who prosecutors say tried to hide Song after the incident.

According to the indictment against Evetts and Arnold, members of the group had been planning the attack over group chats in the days prior, sharing a map of the area, discussing where security cameras could be located at the facility, as well as nearby police stations.

In discussing what weapons to bring, Song suggested bringing “a wagon” of armor and rifles, adding that “cops are not trained or equipped for more than one rifle so it tends to make them back off,” prosecutors said in the indictment.

Investigators said they recovered 10 guns from the group, some of which were left at the scene of the shooting. Four were purchased by Song, whose firearm was equipped with a binary trigger, prosecutors say, which allows a gun to shoot two bullets for every pull of the trigger.

The goal of the group, according to the indictment against Evetts and Arnold, “was to destroy US government property and commit acts dangerous to human life intended to influence” US policy.

Hannah Rabinowitz, Holmes Lybrand, CNN