Four people convicted of federal charges in connection with the nonfatal shooting of a police officer outside a North Texas ICE facility last year will appeal their decades-long sentences, court records show.
Attorneys for Daniel Sanchez Estrada, Savanna Batten, Zachary Evetts and Elizabeth Soto filed notices of appeal within a week after judges sentenced them to prison for playing a role in a noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention center. That protest ended in the shooting of Alvarado Police Lieutentant Thomas Gross.
The notices don't provide details of the basis for the defendants' appeals.
“This conviction is the continuation of a campaign of terror and violence that has been allowed to imprison people speaking out against the immigration policies of the administration,” Batten said in a press release. “This is a government telling its citizens that to raise a voice of dissent carries a life sentence, maybe even death."
KERA News reached out to attorneys for Soto and Sanchez Estrada and will update this story with any response.
A jury convicted Batten, Evetts and Soto of rioting, providing material support to terrorism, conspiracy to use and carry and explosives, and use and carry of explosives — in this case, fireworks. They were sentenced to 50 years in prison.
The trio was among 10 people arrested the night of July 4, 2025, outside the ICE facility in Alvarado. Court records and footage played in court showed the group set off fireworks and chanted along the fenceline of the detention center in a display they say was meant to support those detained inside.
Evetts and another defendant broke off from the group and began damaging vehicles and a surveillance camera in the parking lot, according to Baumann's testimony at trial.
Shortly after Gross arrived at Prairieland in response to a call about a disturbance there, lone-shooter Benjamin Song opened fire and Gross was hit in the shoulder area. Song has argued he fired at the ground as suppressive fire when he saw Gross draw his weapon on an unarmed defendant.
Evetts' attorney Patrick McLain wrote in an emailed statement to KERA News that, as witnesses at last week's sentencing hearing testified, Evetts is a compassionate person with no criminal history or history of violence.
"Zach continues to give compassionate help in the jail, as a detainee, and we expect that will continue until he is one day cleared of this wrongful conviction by appeal or pardon," McLain wrote.
Police arrested Batten and Soto along with three others as they walked through a neighborhood near Prairieland not long after the shooting.
Batten, Soto and Soto's husband — also convicted during trial — ran the Emma Goldman Book Club. Members shared anarchist and socialist literature in the form of zines or homemade booklets, which prosecutors alleged was evidence of the defendants "antifa" or anti-fascist beliefs.
Sanchez Estrada was not at Prairieland the night of the shooting. He was arrested days later after he — at the direction of his wife and codefendant Maricela Rueda — moved a box of "antifa materials" and "anti-government propaganda" from his home in Garland to an apartment in Denton, prosecutors said.
Sanchez Estrada was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record and conspiracy to conceal documents, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Federal officials say the convictions are the first ever for alleged members of antifa. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September designating the group a domestic terrorist organization. That's despite antifa being an ideology, not an established organization of which one can be a member.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice is assisting in Batten's appeal. Senior Counsel for Justice System Reform Anna Byers wrote in a statement Batten's First Amendment rights should be protected.
“The First Amendment does not have an asterisk that says, ‘except when the government disagrees with you,’” Byers said. “If Savanna Batten can be sentenced to 50 years for showing up to a protest, no one who has ever marched, organized, or raised their voice is safe.”
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA's Law and Justice Reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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