Three more people are accused of helping hide the person who shot and wounded a police officer outside a North Texas immigration detention center last year, court records show.
A Johnson County grand jury indicted Melanie Estes, Steven Reyna and Andrew Smith in March for allegedly helping Benjamin Song after he shot Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross during a demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center the night of July 4, 2025.
The indictments accuse the trio of working with defendants Lynette Sharp and Susan Kent to help Song escape from Prairieland the day after the shooting, but the documents do not detail their exact roles. Sharp and Kent pleaded guilty last year in federal court to being part of a plan to transport Song from the fields near Prairieland to Dallas.
Song hid at another defendant’s home in Dallas until federal authorities arrested him after a more than weeklong manhunt.
Estes, Reyna and Smith are charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and hindering the prosecution of terrorism, both first-degree felonies. All three were arraigned this month, and court records show trial dates set for all three later in the year.
Reyna's attorney confirmed his client pleaded not guilty. An attorney for Estes and Smith declined to comment on how his clients pleaded to the charges.
The DFW Support Committee, a group of the defendants’ supporters, said in a news release Estes, Reyna and Smith don’t intend to cooperate with prosecutors against their codefendants.
The latest indictments make 22 total defendants in the case, which spans federal and state courts. A Fort Worth federal jury convicted Song in March of attempted murder for shooting Gross.
Song and eight others were also convicted of lesser charges that included rioting, using explosives and providing material support to terrorism.
Seven people, including Sharp and Kent, pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism.
The defendants were accused of being part of antifa, a decentralized ideology that President Donald Trump has designated a domestic terrorist organization. Some defendants, attorneys and supporters maintain that no one intended violence during the protest in support of immigrants detained at Prairieland.
Five people face only state criminal charges. One of them, Dario Sanchez, is set to go to trial June 22. Sanchez was arrested more than a week after the shooting and is accused of removing Song and defendant John Thomas from a shared group chat.
Sanchez, who is out on bond, was indicted for a third time last week on two counts of hindering the prosecution of terrorism and one count of tampering with physical evidence. Sanchez’s attorneys have filed motions to quash the latest indictment, arguing Sanchez’s actions pertain to digital evidence, not physical evidence.
Sanchez also has a pending motion to exclude Thomas’ federal testimony from his case. Thomas pleaded guilty and testified that the Johnson County District Attorney promised to dismiss his state charges in exchange for his cooperation.
“The case that the State of Texas has brought against me is a sham,” Sanchez said in a statement Thursday. “The State is dead-set on butchering the meaning of the law to serve their narrative. I’m confident that we will prevail at trial, and I look forward to seeing the State twist themselves into knots to try to justify this lawfare.”
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA’s law and justice reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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