Dana El-Kurd

On the first day of this trial, the judge declared a mistrial because one of the defense attorneys wore a shirt featuring civil rights leaders.

A week into the trial, U.S.

District Court Judge Mark Pittman ruled that defense attorneys could not argue that the defendants, including the accused shooter, were acting in self-defense or the defense of others against unlawful force,

just because the officer had already drawn his handgun before Song fired.

The prosecutors compared this to Waco, and Judge Pittman ruled that the officer drawing and pointing his handgun at a fleeing suspect does not qualify as, quote, excessive as a matter of law because the officer did not actually use deadly force or shoot first.

Like if this were a civilian on civilian situation, the fact that he had drawn his gun, especially in Texas, would have been enough to at least argue self-defense.

But absolutely.

Police officers have the right to pull guns on whoever they want, whenever they want, pretty much so.

Yeah.

Yep.

Cool.

In court, the government argued that based on the situation at the protest, that it was reasonable for the officer to decide to draw his handgun because there was crimes being committed, property damage, the fireworks, even if he did not witness fireworks as he pulled up to the scene.

Now, headlines have framed this story as protesters being convicted of terrorism for wearing black clothes or possessing radical political writing, also known as zines.

There is like a kernel of truth to these statements, but they're designed to serve primarily as clickbait rather than useful information.

So let's take a closer look at these claims.

Sure.

Let's start by getting into the action planning.

This action was originally planned on the encrypted messaging app Signal, primarily in a group chat called Fourth of July Party.

Okay.

The plan was also discussed during an in-person meeting the day before the action, referred to during the trial as a gear check.