Prairieland ICE shooter hid under tall sunflowers, confessed, accomplice testifies
Benjamin Song slunk in early July through the thick grass of rural Johnson County, crawling on damp ground through the night and into the next day, a witness testified on Thursday in his ongoing trial in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth.
Song, who was 32, had in the hours before used a rifle to shoot a police officer, prosecutors allege.
Song was dehydrated and hallucinating, the witness said. He prayed to the tall sunflowers that he hoped would obscure his body.
The account of Song’s time hidden outdoors after the shooting at ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado comes from Lynette Sharp, who recalled to the jury what she said Song told her of his time on the run immediately after the shooting. Sharp testified that she was involved in the effort to pick up Song in a car as he emerged from the woods.
Sharp pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists. She hopes her testimony at the joint trial of Song and eight other defendants may result in a recommendation from the U.S. Attorney’s Office that her sentence, to be determined by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, acknowledges her cooperation.
Sharp on Thursday described to the jury the effort, with another person, John Thomas, to pick up Song and help him avoid capture.
Song was supposed to get inside the car’s popped trunk but instead headed for the back seat, Sharp said. They drove to an apartment in which Thomas was cat sitting.
There, on July 6, Sharp put her phone in a microwave at Song’s direction and, with Thomas, listened to Song’s account of what had happened at Prairieland, she said. Song described vandalism and lit fireworks.
“And then he said ‘and then I shot him,’” Sharp testified of Song’s confession.
Alvarado Police Department Lt. Thomas Gross, who had been dispatched to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center because an employee reported that someone was trying to breach it, was shot in his upper shoulder. The projectile took a path through tissue and muscle but avoided vital organs and left the back of his neck, Gross testified earlier in the trial, which began last week.
FBI agents arrested Song in Dallas on July 15.
Sharp, 57, is one of five suspects connected to the case who are cooperating with the government and are expected to testify.
The North Texas U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges the defendants were motivated by anti-government anger, particularly on immigration matters, and that Song shot Gross while some of other defendants were gathered outside Prairieland, a detention center where the government confines immigrants it intends to deport.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office sought the indictments in a novel case against what the government alleges is a group of antifa cell members who intended to kill.
The defendants’ attorneys refer to their clients as noise demonstrators and argue that they wanted, in a protest, to bring hope to immigrants detained by ICE. The indictment represents an attempt to prosecute citizens for their political beliefs, the defense attorneys have argued.
Two months after the shooting, FBI special agents assigned to the bureau’s counterterror squad searched the Fort Worth home of Ines and Elizabeth Soto for a second time to pursue items they missed during the first search.
The agents were looking for evidence of mass production of propaganda, FBI Special Agent Morris Boatner has testified.
In the garage, the agents found and seized a commercial copy machine, paper cutting equipment and a book binder. The FBI seized the printer and other equipment.
The government alleges the Sotos were part of a group of people who created and distributed insurrectionary materials called zines.
Thirteen people wearing black clothes were at Prairieland at the time of the shooting late on July 4, 2025, according to the government account.
Some ignited fireworks and others spoke from a bullhorn or spray-painted anti-ICE phrases on vehicles and an unoccupied guard booth.
Beyond Song and the Sotos, the defendants are Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill (referred to as Cameron Arnold in the indictment), Savanna Batten, Meagan Morris (referred to as Bradford Morris in the indictment), Maricela Rueda and Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada.
Song, a former Marine Corps reservist, is charged with attempted murder and discharging a firearm during, in relation to and in furtherance of a crime of violence. Evetts, Hill, Morris and Rueda are charged with aiding and abetting.
Song, Batten, Evetts, Hill, Morris, Rueda, and Elizabeth and Ines Soto also were indicted on charges including rioting, providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to use and carry an explosive.
Rueda and Sanchez Estrada also are charged with conspiracy to conceal documents, and Sanchez Estrada is charged with corruptly concealing a document or record.
Prosecutors continued to present their case on Friday.
This story was originally published March 6, 2026 at 9:45 AM.
