One of the people who was at a North Texas immigration detention center the night of a nonfatal police shooting testified Thursday he witnessed the incident — and he wasn’t expecting things to turn violent.
Seth Sikes told a Fort Worth federal jury he believed he was just attending a noise demonstration with fireworks July 4. He testified the goal was to let ICE detainees inside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado know they weren’t forgotten.
When correctional officers came out of the facility, Sikes decided it was time to leave and told others to do the same. They didn’t listen, he said.
The moment Sikes heard someone shout “get to the rifles” and the sound of a gun firing after a police officer arrived at Prairieland, he said knew the night had taken a turn for the worse.
“Sounds like there's something bigger going on," Sikes testified. "My prerogative was to get out."
Sikes was arrested about a half mile away from Prairieland minutes later. He pleaded guilty last year to one count of providing material support to terrorism.
As part of his plea deal, Sikes took the witness stand in the federal trial of nine people charged with playing a role in the shooting. They maintain they didn’t intend violence, either.
The 22-year-old from Kennedale testified he met Benjamin Song, the alleged shooter, in 2024 at a self-defense class in Fort Worth. Through Song, Sikes met defendants Ines and Elizabeth “Liz” Soto, Savanna Batten, Maricela Rueda, Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill and Meagan Morris.
Sikes joined the Socialist Rifle Association — a leftist gun group — in early 2025, and he went to shooting ranges with other members. It was there that he found out Song owned a rifle with a binary trigger, a modification letting the gun fire at twice the rate of a regular rifle. That’s the sound he said he heard the night of the Prairieland shooting.
Sikes categorized the group as leftists but said their exact philosophies varied. While he was more of a socialist, others identified as communist or anarchist.
Antifa, he testified, is a blanket term for different disparate groups on the left. Sikes and his peers only used the term to describe themselves in a joking way, he said, not as the name of their group.
Prosecutors allege the defendants’ weapons, literature and paraphernalia show they were united by their anti-fascist, anti-ICE and anti-government beliefs — and that motivated their intent to harm law enforcement.
But in two weeks of trial, attorneys for those who pleaded not guilty to the federal charges have pointed out that it’s not illegal to own anti-government literature or firearms, and argued the night of the shooting didn’t go as anyone intended.
Sikes was part of a “4th of July Party” chat in the encrypted messaging app Signal along with six others, but he said he wasn’t paying much attention to the chat on July 4. Although other members of the chat met at Morris and Hill’s house before heading to Prairieland, Sikes testified he was spending the earlier part of the day with his family and drove to Prairieland around 10 p.m. alone.
He joined about 10 others, dressed in all black or “black bloc,” to set off fireworks and chant outside the Prairieland detainees’ dorm windows. Sikes also had a pistol on his hip and a broken down AR-15 rifle in his backpack, which he brought in case the group needed to defend themselves against right-wing counterprotesters.
But he had no intention to brandish or use his weapons, Sikes said.
“It seems like a way to horrifically escalate a situation,” he testified.
The others weren’t listening to him when he wanted to leave after correctional officers came outside, Sikes said, but closed circuit camera footage shows they all began to walk away in groups of three shortly after the officers approached. As he headed to the street leading out of Prairieland, he saw the flashing lights of police cars, and the next moment was “very much a blur,” he said.
Sikes testified Song shouted “get to the rifles” when Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross arrived at the scene, which is also captured on Gross’ body camera. Sikes said he didn’t know what Song meant.
As Sikes began running, he said he heard the sound of Song’s binary trigger and was afraid. Song later ran past Sikes, swearing and holding his rifle in the air, he said. Sikes testified when he asked what happened, Song just said “no” and at some point dropped his rifle on the side of the road.
Sikes had shown up to Prairieland to take a stand for something he believed in, he said.
But, he added, it “turned into something I very much did not want to be a part of.”
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA’s law and justice reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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