According to the criminal complaint, Prieto met with people at gun shows around Arizona and hatched a plan, focusing on his desire to “fight back” against blacks, Jews and Muslims and the racist message he wanted to send.
FBI Special Agent Ryan Harp wrote in the criminal complaint that Prieto “wanted to make it clear that the attack was racially motivated,” and said he planned to hang a Confederate flag at the scene of the shooting and yell slogans such as “Black lives don’t matter, white lives matter.”
The name of the concert Prieto sought to target is not mentioned in court documents. The date and location of the concert coincides with an appearance by artist Bad Bunny at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. Prieto sought to target the rap concert because he believed black people would attend, the lawsuit says.
Prieto was charged with firearms trafficking and related offenses for allegedly selling two rifles in February and March. Prieto is incarcerated in Arizona and does not have an attorney representing him in the case. His attorney in New Mexico, where he was arrested, did not return calls from The Washington Post on Thursday.
In recent years, factors such as online extremism, distrust of government, and the growing influence of Christian nationalism, including as promoted by conservative officeholders and candidates, have impacted American politics, including racially motivated mass shootings in El Paso, Charleston, South Carolina, and Buffalo.
Alvin Tillery Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Diversity at Northwestern University, said the rise of extremism has deep historical roots in the U.S. After the Civil Rights Act was passed, white nationalist demonstrations “became more subdued and are now again in a more open phase,” he said.
John Lewis, a research fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism, said incidents of political violence are driven by a belief that we need to “stop the theft of this country” by liberals and non-white people.
“This incident is emblematic of the current state of political violence and extremism in the United States today,” Lewis said. “The idea of instigating acts of mass violence in the hopes of sparking a cycle of violence is becoming increasingly common in many far-right, neo-Nazi spaces.”
According to the indictment, Prieto allegedly Shortly before the presidential election, he reportedly spoke about his desire to incite a race war and his belief that the government would impose martial law after the election.
In conversations with FBI sources and the undercover agent, Prieto allegedly strategized about the type of gun he would use, what he would wear, how he would escape, how he would broadcast messages during the attack, and other logistics. Prieto also allegedly sold the undercover agent an AR-15 rifle and instructed him to use it in the attack.
Prieto allegedly said he was going to Atlanta in early May on a recon mission and, according to the indictment, talked about abandoning the concert attack and instead planning to attack a mosque later in the summer.
Officers stopped Prieto while he was driving in New Mexico on May 14. He said he was going to visit his mother in Florida and acknowledged discussing carrying out an attack in Atlanta but said he had no intention of actually doing so, according to the complaint.
A trial date had not been set as of Friday.
