Mark Adams Prieto didn’t really try to hide that he was planning a mass shooting to “incite a race war in the United States.” In fact, Prieto himself shared with an undercover FBI agent his plans to shoot up a concert by Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Bad Bunny in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the Department of Justice, Prieto wanted to specifically attack “blacks, Jews or Muslims.” The man, 58, of Prescott, Arizona, was arrested last month and faces federal charges for firearms trafficking, transferring firearms to commit hate crimes and possession of unregistered weapons.
Prieto was indicted last Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Arizona. The accusation against him details that, between January and May of this year, Prieto held conversations with two FBI collaborators, an undercover agent and an informant, to plan a mass shooting “against African Americans and other minorities in order to incite an race war before the 2024 presidential elections. Without knowing who he was actually talking to, Prieto explained that the shooting had to take place before next November’s elections because, according to him, martial law would be applied shortly after the vote.
According to the complaint filed by the FBI, during a conversation with the undercover agent and informant at the Crossroads of the West gun show in Arizona, where Prieto was a salesman, the man identified as his “target” a “rap concert” that he was going to to be held in Atlanta on May 14 and 15. These are dates on which Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, the given name of the global star of the urban genre, held two concerts of his successful “Most Wanted Tour.”
Prieto specified that he wanted to attack a rap concert because there would be a large concentration of African Americans. And he specified why it should be an event in Atlanta: “Why is Georgia a screwed state now? When I was a child it was one of the most conservative states in the country. Why isn’t it now? Because as crime increased in Los Angeles, St. Louis and many other cities, all the n******s (a slur against African Americans) left those places and moved to Atlanta.”
The man continued detailing his plan without fear. “We have to corner them. And some may try to exit around a corner, and those have to be crushed. Once they get the idea that they are trapped, pandemonium breaks loose. Now they are in panic. And they can’t get out. Now they are going to crawl over each other to get out,” he said according to the document. Prieto also specified that during the attack he would use two semi-automatic rifles, a bolt-action sniper rifle and smoke grenades “to cause more panic.” Additionally, he suggested that the three of them—himself, the undercover agent, and the informant—travel to Atlanta beforehand to store the weapons in the concert hall area.
But the most important thing about the plan, according to Prieto, was to kill as many people as possible. “These people don’t belong in this country anyway,” he said. The man even sold the undercover agent an AR-15 platform rifle for $2,000 in cash to use in the attack.
After several months of reconnaissance and intelligence operations, Prieto was arrested on May 14 in New Mexico while driving to the east of the country. The complaint maintains that, at the time of his arrest, Prieto admitted knowing the informant and the undercover agent and acknowledged that he had conversations with both to “carry out an attack in a public place in Atlanta,” such as “a concert they would attend.” youth and minorities,” and that the attack “would start the revolution.” However, he said that he had no intention of going through with the attack and that he was not headed to Atlanta, but rather he was going to Florida to visit his mother.
At the time of his arrest, Prieto was carrying seven firearms and was taken into federal custody. Authorities later found additional firearms at his residence in Prescott, Arizona, including an unregistered short-barreled rifle. If he is convicted of firearms trafficking and transferring a firearm for use in a hate crime, Prieto could be sentenced to a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. things. A conviction for possession of an unregistered firearm carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
In so far this year, there have been at least 214 mass shootings in the United States, according to Gun Violence Archive, an organization that watches over gun violence in the United States. This platform defines a mass shooting as an incident with four or more victims, excluding the shooter, in the same location, at approximately the same time.
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