Attorney general announces indictment against 30 more people who
protested at a Minnesota church
[February 28, 2026]
By SARAH RAZA
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced federal charges Friday against 30
more people who are accused of civil rights violations in a January
protest inside a Minnesota church where a pastor works for Immigration
and Customs Enforcement.
Bondi said on social media that 25 people were in custody and more
arrests would follow. The new indictment comes a month after independent
journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and prominent local activist
Nekima Levy Armstrong were charged for their alleged roles in a protest
at Cities Church in St. Paul.
Bondi accused the group of attacking a house of worship.
"If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you,
and prosecute you,” she wrote on social media.
A livestreamed video posted on Facebook shows people interrupting
services at Cities Church on Jan. 18 by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice
for Renee Good,” a reference to the woman who was fatally shot by an ICE
officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
Protesters targeted church over its pastor
Protesters descended on Cities Church after learning that one of the
church’s pastors also serves as an ICE official. The protest drew swift
condemnation from Trump administration officials and conservative
leaders for disrupting a Sunday service.
In total, 39 people now face charges of conspiracy against religious
freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom. The new
defendants had initial court appearances and were released.
Lemon and Fort said they were at the church as journalists covering
news. Levy Armstrong was the subject of a doctored photo posted by the
White House showing her crying during her arrest. The three have pleaded
not guilty.
The indictment says the “agitators” entered the church in a “coordinated
takeover-style attack” and engaged in acts of intimidation and
obstruction.
“Young children were left to wonder, as one child put it, if their
parents were going to die,” the indictment says.
Church welcomes more arrests
A lawyer for the church praised the Justice Department for charging more
people.
“The First Amendment does not give anyone — regardless of profession,
prominence, or politics — license to storm a church and intimidate,
threaten, and terrorize families and children worshipping inside,” Doug
Wardlow said in a statement.
The revised indictment adds new allegations when compared to the
original filed in January.
It says two people “conducted reconnaissance” outside the church a day
before the protest and recorded their visit on video, with one saying,
“My thoughts are to be able to close up this whole alleyway right here.”
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Cities Church is seen in St. Paul, Minn. where activists shut down a
service claiming the pastor was also working as an ICE agent,
Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis,
File)
The court filing quotes one protester as chanting in the church,
“This ain't God's house. This is the house of the devil.”
Trahern Crews, who was charged in January and is lead organizer of
Black Lives Matter Minnesota, said the latest arrests were a “waste
of time.”
“It’s a shame that the people who have killed Alex Pretti and Renee
Good or Keith Porter have not been arrested but peaceful protesters
have,” Crews said. Porter was fatally shot in Los Angeles by an
off-duty ICE officer.
Minnesota was hotbed for immigration blitz
Levy Armstrong defended the protest shortly after it occurred. She
said critics needed to “check their hearts” if they were more
concerned about a disruption than the “atrocities that we are
experiencing in our community."
The protest came at a tense time in Minnesota, where the Trump
administration sent thousands of federal officers for Operation
Metro Surge after a series of public fraud cases where the majority
of defendants had Somali roots. Officers frequently deployed tear
gas for crowd control in neighborhood clashes with residents, often
detaining them along with immigrants.
Good, 37, was shot in Minneapolis. In another fatal shooting a week
after the church protest, a federal officer killed Pretti, a
37-year-old nurse, in the same city.
Nationwide demonstrations erupted in response, followed by a change
in Operation Metro Surge’s leadership and the eventual wind-down of
the immigration enforcement operation. Roughly 400 ICE officers and
Homeland Security agents were expected to remain in Minneapolis by
early March, down from roughly 3,000 at the peak, according to a
court filing.
Since then, the Twin Cities have grappled with the impact to
communities and the local economy. Minneapolis said it suffered an
impact of $203 million due to the operation, with tens of thousands
of residents in need of urgent relief assistance.
Separately, a woman who was at the church service has filed a
lawsuit against some people who were charged, alleging emotional
trauma and an inability to exercise her religion that day.
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Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this
report.
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