Anti-immigration enforcement protesters disrupted a service at a Minnesota church, and federal officials said Thursday that at least two people besides civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong were arrested afterward, even as a judge rebuffed a bid to charge journalist Don Lemon tied to the same incident.
The arrests were announced through statements and social media posts by Trump administration officials. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted online that Armstrong had been arrested, later saying a second person was also taken into custody. FBI Director Kash Patel announced a third arrest.
Vance, speaking in Minneapolis, urged state and local law enforcement to collaborate with federal officials and said protesters must stop getting in the way. The vice president arrived in Minnesota in less than a month after Renee Good was killed earlier this month and described the death as “tragedy of her own making,” according to the report.
The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month. The Justice Department later found no basis for a civil rights investigation into Good’s death, officials said.
Bondi posted the message on X: “Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP.” The reporting described Cities Church as a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul that lists an ICE field office pastor, with the account noting that many Baptist churches have pastors who also work other jobs.
The church’s legal side praised the arrests. Doug Wardlow, director of litigation for True North Legal, said the Justice Department “acted decisively by arresting those who coordinated and carried out the terrible crime,” in a statement, as the report described his firm’s work on religious freedom cases.
Vance also addressed a dispute over whether local police helped federal agents. U.S. Border Patrol official Greg Bovino said Minneapolis police failed to help federal agents who were surrounded by protesters at a gas station Wednesday, and Minneapolis police responded that they had not received any requests for assistance from federal agents that day.
Armstrong has been a leader in protests tied to high-profile police-involved killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd, Philando Castile and Jamar Clark, according to the report. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X that Armstrong faced a charge under a statute barring threatening or intimidating someone exercising a right.
Patel said Chauntyll Louisa Allen, the second person Bondi said was arrested, is charged under a law that prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship, and Patel said William Kelly had also been arrested. Allen, Armstrong and Kelly were booked about 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Minneapolis in Sherburne County Jail, the report said.
In court Thursday, federal magistrate judge Doug Micko granted the women bond and restricted them from traveling outside Minnesota or from going near the church. The government said it would appeal, and the women remained in federal custody Thursday afternoon, according to the report.
Armstrong’s attorney, Jordan Kushner, told the court that he offered for Armstrong to turn herself in peacefully, but the Trump administration insisted on arresting her. Marques Armstrong said around 50 agents came to detain her and said: “They wanted a spectacle.”
Alongside the arrests, the reporting said a magistrate judge rejected federal prosecutors’ bid to charge journalist Don Lemon related to the church protest. Kushner said the ruling rejected the prosecutors’ bid, and Lemon said he was at the church as a journalist, not a protester.
In a video posted on social media, Lemon said: “Once the protest started in the church we did an act of journalism which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization. That’s it. That’s called journalism.” Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that the judge’s action confirms Lemon’s work as a reporter was protected by the First Amendment.