More than 100 shell casings on a Dallas bridge, a viral New Year video, and a family car riddled with bullets on a North Texas roadway. Police say the same circle of people, and possibly the same rifles, connect both scenes.
According to a report from Fox News, which cites statements from the Dallas Police Department, three men from Grand Prairie now face a mix of misdemeanor gun charges and serious felony counts after detectives linked online videos of celebratory gunfire to a separate road-rage shooting that nearly struck three adults and three children in a single vehicle. The men remain accused, not convicted, and the investigation is still open.
Viral Bridge Gunfire and a Citywide Investigation
Fox News reports that the case began after social media videos showed several people firing guns from the Margaret McDermott Bridge over Interstate 30, just west of downtown Dallas, in the early hours of New Year 2026. Viewers could see rifles sticking out of vehicles on the bridge while shots rang out above a busy interstate.
Today, the Dallas Police Department announced the arrests of two suspects connected to a New Year’s Eve gunfire incident on the I-30 bridge that was captured in a widely circulated video and viewed worldwide.
Anthony Acevedo, 20, and Jose AlarconSanchez, 18, both of Grand… pic.twitter.com/xwdXAEHOSA
— Dallas Police Dept (@DallasPD) January 29, 2026
Dallas police described the investigation as aggressive and exhaustive, according to Fox. Detectives from the department’s Central Patrol Division and Special Investigations Unit worked with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the United States Attorney’s Office. Investigators recovered more than 100 shell casings near the bridge, an amount that suggests sustained gunfire rather than a single burst.
Shell casings are an important form of physical evidence. The ATF has long promoted its National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, which compares markings on cartridge cases from crime scenes to link guns and shootings across different incidents. Dallas investigators have not publicly detailed every forensic step in this case, but recovering that volume of casings gives them a foundation for ballistic analysis.
Fox News identifies two of the men in the videos as 20-year-old Anthony Acevedo and 18-year-old Jose AlarconSanchez, both from Grand Prairie. The Dallas Police Department, as summarized in the Fox report, says they are each charged with the Texas offense of discharge of a firearm in certain municipalities, a Class A misdemeanor.
Under Texas law, that crime is defined in Section 42.12 of the Penal Code and applies when a person knowingly discharges a firearm within city limits that meet specific population thresholds https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.42.htm#42.12. Class A misdemeanors in Texas are punishable by up to one year in county jail and a fine of up to 4,000 dollars. At this stage, Acevedo and AlarconSanchez have been charged, not sentenced.
A New Year Arrest and a November Road-Rage Allegation
During the bridge investigation, Dallas detectives learned that AlarconSanchez had already been arrested earlier that same morning by the Grand Prairie Police Department for what Fox describes as a similar firearms offense. Public charging documents from Grand Prairie were not included in the Fox report, and Dallas police have not released additional details in that account about where that alleged offense occurred or what type of weapon was involved.
As they widened the inquiry, investigators say they found evidence linking a third man, 25-year-old Anderson Derce Lara, to a separate road-rage shooting from the previous November. According to Fox’s summary of the police investigation, officers believe Derce Lara fired multiple rounds into a vehicle carrying three adults and three children during a traffic dispute. No injuries were reported, but bullets reportedly came close to the occupants.
Police, as quoted in the Fox report, say a search warrant executed with ATF assistance turned up several firearms, including rifles that appeared to match those visible in the bridge videos. That discovery is what investigators say ties the November road-rage case and the New Year bridge gunfire together, although that claim has not yet been tested at trial.
Fox News reports that Derce Lara now faces six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a first-degree felony in Texas. Under Section 22.02 of the Texas Penal Code, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon involves causing or threatening serious bodily injury while using or exhibiting a deadly weapon. First-degree felonies in Texas are punishable by five to 99 years, or life, in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dollars.
Key allegations so far, based on Fox’s reporting of police accounts, include:
Item 1: Acevedo and AlarconSanchez are accused of firing guns from vehicles on the Margaret McDermott Bridge on New Year 2026.
Item 2: AlarconSanchez was arrested earlier that same morning on a similar firearms allegation in Grand Prairie.
Item 3: Derce Lara is accused of firing into a car holding six people during a November road-rage confrontation, and of possessing rifles police say match those seen in the bridge video.
None of these allegations have been resolved in court. At this point, they remain claims by law enforcement, and no trial testimony or cross-examination has publicly vetted the evidence.
Charges, Immigration Detainers, and What Custody Means
Fox News reports that Acevedo has been released on bond. AlarconSanchez and Derce Lara are being held on immigration detainers, which means federal immigration authorities have asked local jailers to hold them for possible transfer into federal custody once local criminal proceedings allow.
Immigration detainers are civil requests issued by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE describes detainers as notices that a person in local custody may be removable under federal immigration law and asks that the agency be notified prior to release, with a brief extension of custody in some cases. A detainer does not itself decide guilt in a criminal case, but it can affect whether a person remains in jail pending trial and what happens afterward.
The Fox report characterizes the men held on detainers as illegal immigrants, citing unnamed federal sources. At the time of that reporting, detailed immigration records, visa histories, or asylum claims, if any, were not provided. Immigration status will not determine guilt or innocence in the underlying gun and assault cases. It can, however, influence whether a conviction leads to removal from the United States.
Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux is quoted by Fox as saying, ‘If you put lives at risk in Dallas, we will identify you, investigate thoroughly, and hold you accountable.’ The statement underscores the city’s decision to treat the viral videos as more than online spectacle and to pursue both local and federal partners in the investigation.
What Is Clear and What Remains Open
Some elements of the case are well defined in public records and Texas law. The bridge lies within a municipality large enough that recreational gunfire is plainly illegal under the discharge of firearm statute. State law spells out potential penalties for both the misdemeanor and felony counts the men face. And the viral videos, which Fox says have been viewed worldwide, give investigators and the public a visible starting point for understanding what happened above Interstate 30 that night.
Other aspects remain less clear. Police have not, in the Fox account, disclosed whether any of the seized rifles have been definitively matched to bullets or casings from the November road-rage scene through ballistic testing. They have not said whether any of the firearms were purchased legally, stolen, or trafficked. There is no public information yet on whether federal firearms charges, such as possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, are being considered.
For now, the publicly described evidence rests on:
Item 1: Social media videos showing apparent gunfire from a Dallas bridge.
Item 2: More than 100 shell casings recovered near that bridge.
Item 3: A search warrant that allegedly turned up rifles resembling those in the videos, along with witness or victim accounts from a November road-rage encounter.
The investigation, according to Dallas police, as reported by Fox, is ongoing. That means additional suspects could be identified, charges could change, and the strength of the evidence will eventually be tested not in edited clips online but in a courtroom, where defense attorneys can challenge how those videos and shell casings are linked to the three men now under arrest.
Until those proceedings unfold in detail, basic questions remain. How directly can investigators connect the weapons recovered in the search to both incidents, and will jurors view the viral footage as proof beyond a reasonable doubt or only as part of a more complicated picture of New Year gunfire in North Texas?
