FEATURING LYDIA KOZA - Eight people were recently sentenced in the case of a nonfatal shooting last July outside the Prairieland Detention Center in North Texas. It is the first application of President Donald Trump’s designation of “antifa” as a terrorist organization–this despite the fact that no one was killed. The sentences are shockingly long, with a total of 450 years between 8 people.
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Among them are Autumn Hill who received a 50-year sentence and whose wife Lydia Koza spoke to Sonali Kolhatkar. Raised in Tempe, Arizona, Koza is a prison abolition activist. She is also active in the transgender community, and has worked as a freelance web developer, studied mechanical engineering.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:
Sonali Kolhatkar: So, these sentences are unbelievable, and I cannot imagine what you're going through. I imagine this past year has been a tremendously anxious time. Let me first ask you to describe for our audience, just to put into context, what it was that your wife has basically been accused of doing, convicted and sentenced of doing. The incident was one where one lieutenant police officer was injured, and nobody was killed. How do you explain it to people? What happened last year, July 4th, I believe it was?
Lydia Koza: Yeah. It was July 24th, or, sorry, July 4th, 2025. You can see how awake I am or not because of the amount of stress I've been going through. On July 4th, 2025, there was a noise demonstration at Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. A noise demonstration is basically a demonstration of solidarity, a protest in support of people who are detained or incarcerated.
My understanding is that the defendants wanted to show people who were put in this detention camp, which by the way, nobody there is, to my understanding, credibly accused of a crime. This is for civil immigration violations at most, if even that. ICE has taken these people and warehoused them after kidnapping them out of their homes and neighborhoods.
The point of the protest was to show them, "Hey, you matter to us. We know your families miss you."
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