Man planned mass shooting in Atlanta to incite ‘race war,’ officials say

An Arizona man who planned to carry out a mass shooting at an Atlanta rap concert to incite a ‘race war’ has been indicted by a federal grand jury on hate crime and weapons charges fire.

The man, Mark Adams Prieto, hatched a plan during several discussions with two people working for the FBI who posed as racist extremists to carry out a mass shooting targeting black people and other people of color during a concert in Atlanta on May 14 and 15. , the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Prieto intended to incite a “race war” before the presidential election, prosecutors said in a news release.

Prieto, 58, was reported to authorities last year by an acquaintance who said he made comments calling for mass shootings targeting Black people and others, according to officials.

Prieto faces two counts of firearm trafficking, one count of transferring a firearm for use in a hate crime and one count of possession of an unregistered firearm.

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He faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for each firearm trafficking and transfer charge and a maximum sentence of 10 years for the unregistered firearms charge, prosecutors said. Prieto could also be fined $250,000 for each count.

Authorities stopped and arrested Prieto, of Prescott, Ariz., near Interstate 40 in New Mexico, on May 14, according to prosecutors.

He had seven firearms in his vehicle and investigators executing a search warrant would later discover an arsenal of firearms in his home, according to the indictment.

Authorities were informed of Prieto in October by a man who had known him and frequently chatted with him at gun shows, according to an affidavit filed in court.

The indictment says that beginning in January, at several gun shows in Arizona, Prieto discussed plans for a mass shooting with an undercover agent and the man who reported him (working now as an informant).

During a conversation at a gun show on January 21, Prieto asked the men to help him stage a mass shooting at a rap concert in Atlanta, where he believed he there would be a large number of black spectators.

Prieto suggested they leave Confederate flags behind at the site of the attack and shout things like “Black lives don’t matter, white lives matter,” to make it clear that the shooting was motivated by racism, according to the affidavit.