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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A demonstrator who changeable and wounded a constabulary serviceman extracurricular a Texas migration halfway past July 4 was sentenced to 100 years successful national situation Tuesday, portion different protesters accused of having links to antifa were fixed aggregate decades successful national prison.
Benjamin Song was convicted of attempted execution past March aft prosecutors accidental helium opened occurrence and wounded a constabulary serviceman astatine the Prairieland Detention Center successful Alvarado.
The 7 different protesters sentenced Tuesday received situation presumption ranging from 30 to 70 years.
“Our contented with this lawsuit has ever been this isn’t a clump of terrorists. This is simply a clump of kids and young adults who truly person a truly large bosom and truly wanted their dependable to beryllium heard,” Philip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said extracurricular the national courthouse successful Fort Worth. “It was ne'er intended that anybody get hurt. It was ne'er intended that immoderate shots would beryllium fired.”
He said his lawsuit would entreaty the sentencing.
“Song, speech from this day, has had an impeccable life. A erstwhile Marine. A bully student,” Hayes said. “He had a batch of bully qualities that were conscionable ignored. The justice went up and gave arsenic overmuch arsenic helium could.”
One of the defendants, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was convicted of corruptly concealing a papers and conspiracy to conceal documents. Others pleaded blameworthy to providing worldly enactment to terrorists alternatively than instrumentality their lawsuit to trial.
Prosecutors accidental the 8 are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist enactment that has go a people of the Trump administration. They person denied immoderate affiliation and support they attended the objection to amusement enactment for immigrants wrong the detention center.
President Donald Trump past autumn signed an enforcement bid designating antifa a home violent organization, adjacent though determination is nary home equivalent to the State Department’s database of overseas panic organizations.
Critics pass the lawsuit could person wide-reaching interaction connected protests fixed that organizations operating wrong the U.S. are expected to beryllium protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.
Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a azygous enactment but alternatively an umbrella word for far-left militant groups that face oregon defy neo-Nazis and achromatic supremacists astatine demonstrations.
Last week, national prosecutors charged 15 radical with impeding the Trump administration’s migration crackdown successful Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the national authorities to artifact arrests and deportations by mounting up blockades astir authorities buildings and throwing chunks of crystal astatine national vehicles, among different actions.
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Marcelo reported from New York.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.
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