DOJ Announces Arrests Tied to Disruption Of Minnesota Church Service
WASHINGTON — At least three arrests have been made among those who disrupted a Southern Baptist church service Sunday, Jan. 18, to protest ICE activities in Minneapolis, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Thursday morning.
“Minutes ago at my direction, [Homeland Security] and [FBI] agents executed an arrest in Minnesota,” Bondi posted on X on the arrest of Nekima Levy Armstrong.
Armstrong is a Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney and activist who appeared on video taken by protesters inside Cities Church on Jan. 18. She has also publicly acknowledged her involvement in the protest.
READ: Minnesota Church Condemns ‘Shameful’ Protest Disrupting Worship Service
Bondi later announced two more arrests, that of Chauntyll Louisa Allen, community organizer and a member of the St. Paul School Board, and William Kelly, an activist who videoed the protest.
“Our nation was settled and founded by people fleeing religious persecution,” Bondi posted after news of Kelly’s arrest. “Religious freedom is the bedrock of this country. We will protect our pastors. We will protect our churches. We will protect Americans of faith.”
Both Allen and Kelly have been charged with conspiracy to deprive rights, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X, based on an 1871 act prohibiting those who would conspire to deny the rights of others.
The act was passed to prohibit Ku Klux Klan acts of intimidation aimed at preventing formerly enslaved people from gathering freely. It says those in groups of two or more cannot “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” to prevent them from doing so. The language further includes those who “go in disguise” and “on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder” gatherings.
Meanwhile, a federal magistrate judge declined to issue charges against former CNN host Don Lemon, who attended the protest. Lemon can be seen on his own video interviewing the protesters as well as Pastor Jonathan Parnell. He indicates to Parnell that the protestors’ actions are protected by the First Amendment.
CBS News reported a source said Bondi is “enraged” by the judge’s action.
Protesters could also face charges under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a federal law that typically protects access to abortion clinics. However, language in the act also protects the “religious freedom at a place of religious worship” from “threat(s) of force [and] physical obstruction” as well as attempts to injure or intimidate.
Armstrong claimed in a CNN interview yesterday that she and others were participants in the service before she stood up and questioned Pastor Jonathan Parnell about an elder’s role leading an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. Protestors who had been sitting among the crowd then stood and began chants that disrupted the service.
The Trump administration, she claimed, is “trying to turn a peaceful, nonviolent demonstration into a crime.”
Leaders from Cities Church see it differently, calling the act “shameful, unlawful conduct” in a statement released Jan. 20. Kelly’s video includes footage of himself loudly confronting attendees, both inside and outside the church, and scared children being comforted.
Yesterday, Parnell released the video from an earlier service of the sermon that was interrupted. Titled “Love One Another,” the background passage is John 13:31-35.
“It’s what I would have said at the 10:30 service,” he wrote. “And I believe all of it.”
This article has beem republished with permission from Baptist Press.
Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.