Attorney general announces indictment against 30 more people who protested at a Minnesota church

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges Friday against 30 more people accused of civil rights violations in January Protest at Minnesota church where a chaplain works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Bondi said on social media that 25 people had been detained and that more arrests were to come. The new indictment charges independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong in St. It comes a month after he was indicted for his alleged role in the protest at Cities Church in St. Paul.

Bondi accused the group of attacking a place of worship.

“If you do this, you can’t hide from us; we will find you, arrest you and sue you,” he wrote on social media.

In total, 39 people are currently charged with conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right to religious freedom.

A livestreamed video posted on Facebook shows people disrupting services at Cities Church on Jan. 18 chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.” woman fatally shot on Jan. 7 by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

The new defendants will appear in court for the first time and a magistrate judge will determine their possible conditions of release. Lemon and Fort said they were at the church as journalists covering the news. Levy Armstrong was the subject of a doctored photo released by the White House that showed her crying during her arrest. All three denied the accusations.

Protesters flocked to Cities Church after learning that one of the church’s pastors also served as an ICE officer. The protest was quickly condemned by Trump administration officials and conservative leaders for disrupting Sunday services.

The indictment states that “agitators” entered the church in a “coordinated takeover-style attack” and engaged in acts of intimidation and obstruction.

“Little children were left to wonder, as one child put it, whether their parents were going to die,” the indictment says.

An attorney for the church praised the Justice Department for charging more people.

“The First Amendment does not permit anyone, regardless of profession, reputation, or politics, to attack a church and intimidate, threaten, and terrorize families and children worshiping inside,” Doug Wardlow said in a statement.

The revised indictment adds new allegations compared to the original indictment filed in January.

It was stated that the day before the protest, two people “scouted” outside the church and recorded their visit on video, with one person saying, “My idea is to close this street right here.”

The court file states that a protester chanted in the church, “This is not the house of God. This is the house of the devil.”

Levy Armstrong defended the protest shortly after it took place. He said critics should “check their hearts” if they were worried about a disruption rather than “the atrocities we experience in our society.”

The protest comes at a tense time in Minnesota, where the Trump administration has sent thousands of federal officers for Operation Metro Surge following a series of public fraud cases in which the majority of the defendants are of Somali descent. Officers frequently used tear gas to control crowds during clashes with residents, often detaining them along with immigrants.

Good, 37, shot in Minneapolis. In another deadly shooting a week after the church protest, a federal officer killed a 37-year-old nurse. Alex is beautiful.

In response, nationwide demonstrations broke out, followed by a change in the leadership of Operation Metro Surge and eventually the end of the immigration enforcement operation. About 400 ICE officers and Homeland Security agents were expected to remain in Minneapolis in early March, according to a court filing; this number was approximately 3,000 at its peak.

Since then, the Twin Cities have grappled with its impact on communities and the local economy. Minneapolis said there was a $203 million impact from the operation and tens of thousands of residents needed emergency assistance.

Separately, a woman who attended a church service filed a lawsuit against some people accused of suffering emotional trauma that day and failing to practice her religion.

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Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.