TEXARKANA, Texas–The Lone Star State’s highest criminal court on Wednesday reinstated a 50-year prison term for a local man who associated with an anti-government group known as the Boogaloo Boys when he armed himself in 2020 and drove around Texarkana searching for a cop to kill while livestreaming on Facebook.
The first appellate court to consider the convictions of Aaron Caleb Swenson, 41, had tossed out a conviction for attempted capital murder of a peace officer and accompanying 50-year sentence after finding that his conduct in April 2020 didn’t “cross the line” between preparation and attempt. On Wednesday the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the Texarkana-based Sixth District Court of Appeals ruling, meaning that Swenson’s conviction for attempted capital murder of a peace officer and the half-century prison term that goes with it, will stand.
“We conclude that he did cross that line because, with the expressed intent to kill, he hunted a particular individual,” the majority opinion from the Court of Criminal Appeals said Wednesday.
Swenson had dressed himself in a Hawaiin shirt – a signature of the Boogaloos – and armed himself with three firearms, more than 100 rounds of ammunition and a katana sword he had forged himself the night of April 11, 2020. Swenson drove his Chevy pickup from his home in Hooks onto Interstate-30 and into Texarkana with a live Facebook feed on which he told his audience that he was hunting for a police officer to murder.
Police had been alerted to the live feed and were on alert when Swenson declared that he had spotted “his prey.” Officer Jonathan Price, who was watching the live feed while parked on the access road for the highway in front of St. Michael’s Hospital, testified that he drove away because he feared it was him that Swenson was turning to intercept.
Failing to find Price parked where he had first seen him, Swenson eventually finds himself behind a police car on the highway and soon realizes that behind him are a long line of patrol cars. Officers manage to spike one of Swenson’s tires and he eventually comes to a stop.
Heavy metal music blares from Swenson’s truck as he is surrounded by officers. After a standoff, Swenson finally surrenders.
First Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp told TXK Today on Wednesday that, “The Bowie County District Attorney’s Office is pleased that the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin agreed that Aaron Swenson’s inexcusable and outrageous conduct clearly amounted to an attempt to commit capital murder of a police officer.”
“In 2021, a Bowie County jury quickly found Swenson guilty of attempting to murder Texarkana, Texas, police officer Jonathan Price, and rightly sentenced this defendant to 50 years,” Crisp said. “The jury’s verdict and the Court of Criminal Appeals decision approving the same, should serve as a reminder that Bowie County will continue to aggressively prosecute criminals in order to protect those who sacrifice so much to protect us.”
A jury sentenced Swenson to 50 years for attempted murder of a peace officer, 20 years for terroristic threatening and 10 years for evading arrest.
In October 2021, the intermediate appellate court threw out Swenson’s conviction for attempted capital murder of a peace officer but left his convictions for the other crimes intact.
Two of the Court of Criminal Appeals justices dissented from the majority opinion Wednesday and disagreed that Swenson had crossed the line from preparation to attempt.
“For all of the smoke he blew for his online viewers, and for whatever may have been going on in his own mind, objectively he did no more than drive around Texarkana with guns in his car,” one of the dissenting opinions said.
Swenson is currently being held in the Hughes Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Gatesville, Texas.
