Last summer, a suspicious box led the FBI to a Denton apartment in connection with a July 4 demonstration at an Alvarado immigration enforcement facility, where a police officer was shot and injured.
A Denton City Council candidate lived at that apartment.
Kristofer “Kris” Cox, who announced his City Council run last week, said he wasn’t at the demonstration nor was he involved with it.
Cox wasn’t arrested or charged with a crime.
So far, 19 people have been arrested and face a range of federal and state charges that include hindering prosecution of terrorism in connection to what authorities called a “North Texas Antifa Cell.” The most recent arrest occurred last week in Weatherford.
Several defendants deny intending violence or connections to antifa — short for anti-fascist and often used to describe left-wing ideology, which the Trump administration has deemed a domestic terrorist organization.Ten defendants have pleaded not guilty, seven pleaded guilty, and the two latest arrestees haven’t entered a plea yet, according to KERA News.
Trials begin next month.
Last week, Cox told the Denton Record-Chronicle he had prepared volunteers working on his campaign for the possibility of the FBI’s execution of a search warrant in early July coming up on the campaign trail.
“I was actually taking a step away from left politics at the time,” said Cox, who co-founded Denton Left, a political activist and community group. “I was kind of focusing on unionizing the [city’s] after-school program. That was kind of my big focus. I wasn’t really involved, not really, with anything going on in Fort Worth.”
The July 4 incident
On July 4, correctional officers called 911 because they grew concerned shortly before 11 p.m. that the nearly dozen people gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Prairieland Detention Center were going to break into the facility, according to a July 7 criminal complaint.
They were shooting fireworks toward the facility and spraying graffiti. They were also allegedly wearing body armor and black military-style clothing, with high-powered flashlights and two-way radios.
An Alvarado police officer arrived at 11 p.m. People fled on foot, ignoring the officer’s verbal commands. Then, a person in a green mask, according to news reports, opened fire from the nearby woods. The officer was struck in the neck and/or upper back area.
Initially, law enforcement believed there were two probable shooters with AR-style rifles that discharged between 20 and 30 rounds.
Officials described it as an egregious, coordinated attack on law enforcement and claimed that those arrested were part of a so-called “North Texas Antifa Cell.” They found flyers that read “fight ICE terror with class war” and “free all political prisoners.”
The aftermath
“We had literally no idea about anything,” said Cox’s roommate, who also said she wasn’t in attendance. “Other than, like, there are big charges occurring and, like, something has happened. I’m freaking out because these are people with kids, people who have jobs. They have pets.”
Three of the people arrested were the roommate’s friends.
“My friends who do art and my friends who do poetry are just suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth,” she said. “That’s awful and terrifying. … They are not these scary people. The Sotos have three kids — and they don’t really put it out to the press very much — but I taught their kids how to swim. Obviously, we’re not scary people.”
Friends and loved ones of those arrested have to come together as the DFW Support Committee to help them, in part since many of them have struggled to obtain legal counsel “because the public defender assignment process has been obstructed by a seemingly deliberate and targeted array of red tape and outright denial,” according to the committee’s website.
Dario Sanchez, a Dallas teacher, said the support committee also helped him after his July 15 arrest on state charges of tampering with evidence and later rearrested for hindering the prosecution of terrorism.
“The whole thing has been ridiculous with all this crazy stuff about this antifa cell and nonsense out there,” Sanchez told the Record-Chronicle on Monday. “These people, it is not in their nature, one, and two, is ridiculous for them to claim that there is some organized terror cell.”
The box
Two days after the shooting in July, Cox was inside the apartment when his roommate called him from work and asked him to bring inside a box of pamphlets and other artwork that her friend Daniel Sanchez Estrada had dropped off.
Cox, a Fort Worth-area native, spent his childhood near Gas City, Indiana, and his teenage years in Saginaw before moving to Denton for college in 2013. He met his roommate, who wished to remain anonymous, through Denton Left in 2020.
Denton Left holds “free store” events in which group members distribute food, clothes and hygiene products at Quakertown and Fred Moore parks. It’s also been involved in political issues, such as supporting the Free Palestine movement, immigration, decriminalizing marijuana and supporting abortion rights.
Cox said he didn’t know it at the time, but Sanchez Estrada had been pulled over for a traffic violation and arrested down the road from Cox’s apartment for his connection to the July 4 incident.
The pamphlets Sanchez Estrada included in the box are also called zines — small, self-published booklets of art and text, sometimes distributed at events and protests and on store counters.
In Sanchez Estrada’s Oct. 15 indictment, Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Gatto claims Sanchez Estrada’s box contained “numerous ANTIFA materials such as insurrection planning [and] anti-law enforcement, anti-government and anti-immigration enforcement documents and propaganda.”
Cox’s roommate has been collecting art, books and zines for more than a decade, which is why she said Sanchez Estrada asked her if she would keep his artwork. She said he didn’t feel comfortable with it at his parents’ house, where he lived.
“They’re trying to charge someone for having their own artwork and their own zines,” the roommate said.
Cox said law enforcement looked through their zines for anything political.
In the July 7 criminal complaint, law enforcement claim that Sanchez Estrada’s wife, Maricela Rueda, who was one of the 10 people arrested on July 4, called Sanchez Estrada from the Johnson County Jail and told him “whatever you need to do, move whatever you need to move at the house.”
An FBI surveillance team watched Sanchez Estrada leave his parents’ home in Garland and take the box to Denton. They identified the renter and reported that he “does not have a known relationship” with Sanchez Estrada or his wife.
Sanchez Estrada was charged with tampering with evidence and conspiracy to tamper with evidence in an official proceeding.
“This has been happening to a lot of people, and to people who are a lot more vulnerable than I am,” Cox said. “They don’t get a lot of attention when they get arrested and disappear into the system. I don’t know how to fix that, but I want some remembrance for them as well.”
Property woes
Eight months later, Cox still hasn’t gotten his property back from the FBI, though he has filed a “pardon of property” request. He said the FBI took handwritten notebooks, phones and laptops, including one he was using to get his teacher certification in history, which he said “has been put on indefinite hold.”
According to the notice of seizure, which was sent to Cox on Sept. 4, the FBI also took four spray paint cans, his ammo and his three guns: a Palmetto State Armory AR-15, a Century Arms AK-47 and a 9 mm Ruger pistol that he said has a broken firing pin.
Those who attended the July 4 Prairieland demonstration allegedly carried spray paint and wrote “ICE Pig” and “Traitor” on cars in the parking lot.
Since the FBI seizure notice in September, Cox talked with his roommate and Denton Left as a whole about seeking the City Council seat in District 1. The current council member, Vicki Byrd, is stepping down to run for the Denton ISD school board.
Cox was inspired to run for office after the city eliminated the Parks and Recreation Department’s after-school program last year because it offered similar services as Denton ISD’s after-school program. The move allowed city leaders to save money during a nearly $14 million budget shortfall.
Cox said the city’s elimination of the program, where he worked as a supervisor, was “a big motivating factor,” based on “urgency.” He was concerned that both liberal and conservative members of the City Council voted to cut the program with little chance for public comment.
The FBI incident, Cox said, is always on the back of his mind, “not only for office but in life.” Yet, he said he couldn’t let it stop him from doing things. If he did, “what’s the point anymore?”
“I can’t let the fear of that stop me from making a positive change, bringing back after-school or anything that I want to do in life,” Cox said.
KERA News reporter Penelope Rivera contributed to this report.
CHRISTIAN McPHATE can be reached at 940-220-4299 and cmcphate@dentonrc.com.
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