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The Intercept is<\/span> suing a city government in Texas in a bid to release police records related to the violent confrontation at an immigration detention facility that led to the landmark Prairieland trial<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n In a filing in state court, The Intercept accused the city of Alvarado, Texas, and its police department of refusing to release records sought under the state\u2019s Public Information Act. The news outlet asked a judge to order the city to release records of police communications on the days before and after a noise demonstration<\/a> outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s Prairieland detention facility that turned violent.<\/p>\n Despite The Intercept agreeing to pay hundreds of dollars for the records, the city has failed to process the payment and left the records request in limbo, according to the complaint and to attorney Terry Mutchler, a veteran defender of records access who is representing The Intercept in the case.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for 30 years, and this is one of the singularly most distressing cases that I\u2019ve seen in terms of public access to records,\u201d Mutchler said. \u201cThis is stonewalling on steroids.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a situation where the public officials should be ashamed of themselves for forgetting who they work for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThe Intercept cut the check, and now the city won\u2019t cash the check and they won\u2019t give us the records \u2014 it\u2019s radio silence,\u201d said Mutchler. \u201cThis is a situation where the public officials should be ashamed of themselves for forgetting who they work for.\u201d<\/p>\n A representative of the Alvarado city government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The complaint stems from a request filed under the state\u2019s Public Information Act by freelance journalist C. Frances<\/a>, who, on behalf of The Intercept, sought records of communications by Alvarado Police Department personnel in connection to a noise demonstration on July 4, 2025, at the Prairieland facility. The protest devolved into an armed confrontation and shots were fired<\/a>. An Alvarado police officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the shooting.<\/p>\n More than a dozen protesters, including people present that evening and others with varying levels of involvement in the protest, were arrested in the aftermath of the incident.<\/p>\n That case against the protesters became a proving ground of the Trump administration\u2019s war on the activist left, ending with hefty sentences for many of the co-defendants, including Benjamin Song, who was sentenced to 100 years in prison<\/a> for attempted murder and other charges. Song and other defendants are set to appeal their convictions.<\/p>\n The records saga began on February 16, when Frances submitted a request to Alvarado city government for internal and external communications to and from its police department between July 4 and July 18, 2025. Over the next month, amid a back and forth with city officials over the scope of the request, Frances eventually narrowed her request to all email communications directly related to the incident. Weeks later, the city told Frances the bill for the records, including labor hours spent processing and redacting them, would come to $854.17.<\/p>\n\n