(RNS) — Federal officials say they have arrested three of the protesters who disrupted a worship service at a Minnesota church this past weekend.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on Twitter that Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of the protest organizers, and alleged protester Chauntyll Louisa Allen were arrested on Thursday morning (Jan. 22). A third protester was arrested later in the day.
“Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” Bondi tweeted.
Asked to confirm the arrests, the media office for the Department of Homeland Security emailed a link to a tweet about Armstrong’s arrest by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“Homeland Security Investigators and FBI agents arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong who played a key role in orchestrating the Church Riots in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Noem tweeted, adding that Armstrong was being charged with violating Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code, a section known as “conspiracy against rights.”
“Religious freedom is the bedrock of the United States — there is no first amendment right to obstruct someone from practicing their religion,” tweeted Noem.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating a group of protesters in Minnesota who disrupted services at Cities Church, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparently serves as a pastor. (Video screen grab, courtesy of the Center for Baptist Leadership)
FBI Director Kash Patel also tweeted about the arrest, saying the protest at Cities Church in St. Paul had violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which protects access to houses of worship and abortion clinics.
Bondi also posted on Thursday afternoon that protester William Kelly, who livestreamed the protest, has been arrested as well.
Kelly, who had given a press conference earlier this week, daring Bondi to arrest him, posted an obscenity-filled video on TikTok after Armstrong was arrested, saying his lawyers had assured him that federal officials had no grounds for arresting the protesters.“Now it’s time to shut this country down,” he said in denouncing Trump administration officials. “We are at fascism.”
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that a federal magistrate refused to authorize a warrant for journalist Don Lemon, who documented the protest.
Video of the protest, which went viral, shows activists standing up during the middle of a service at Cities Church, a Southern Baptist congregation, and shouting “Justice for Renee Good” and “ICE Out,” with some confronting worshippers about the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis.
Levy Armstrong told The Washington Post earlier this week that the protest was aimed at David Easterwood, a lay pasto …