By Aldgra Fredly
Contributing Writer
The Department of Justice will pursue charges against individuals involved in a protest inside a church Sunday in St. Paul, Minnesota, a DOJ official said, adding that former CNN journalist turned YouTuber Don Lemon, who livestreamed the incident, is “on notice.”
Protesters disrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday, chanting phrases such as “Justice for Renee Good,” following claims that one of the church pastors serves as the acting field office director for ICE in Minnesota.
Responding to a post on X quoting Lemon’s comments on the protest, the DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, said a house of worship is not a public forum for protest.
“It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!” Dhillon said in a Sunday post on X. “You are on notice!”
During an interview with conservative influencer Benny Johnson on Monday, Dhillon said that the DOJ will pursue charges against the protesters and may use provisions of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which prohibits individuals from banding together to violate the constitutional rights of other people.
Dhillon also mentioned the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act of 1994, which prohibits the use of “force, threat of force, or physical obstruction” against people seeking to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.
“We’re putting the facts together, and this is a very serious matter. Come next Sunday, nobody should think in the United States that they’re going to be able to get away with this,” she said.
“Everyone in the protest community needs to know that the fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long, long time.”
Dhillon specifically mentioned Lemon during the interview.
“Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility,” Dhillon said. “He went into the facility, and then he began, quote unquote, ‘committing journalism,’ and as if that’s sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t.”
In a statement provided to media outlets, Lemon said: “It’s notable that I’ve been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist, especially since I wasn’t the only reporter there. That framing is telling.”
In a podcast interview with IHIP News on Monday, he said that he was covering the protests and did not anticipate that the protesters would move into the church.
“They ended up at a church. I didn’t even know they were going to a church. … And so, once they went in and did their thing, other journalists started going in, and I went in,” Lemon said. “So, I’m not exactly sure … how I became the face of it unless they just think I’m the bigger name. But it’s bizarre.”
During his livestream of the protest, Lemon spoke to the church’s lead pastor, Jonathan Parnell, as protesters gathered inside the church. Parnell said he asked the protesters to leave, but they refused.
Lemon pointed to the First Amendment, highlighting the rights “to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest,” and Parnell replied that the congregation had come “here to worship Jesus.”
When asked whether he had tried to talk to the protesters, Parnell said: “No one is willing to talk. I have to take care of my church and my family, so I ask that you actually would also leave this building.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that she had spoken with the church’s pastor and vowed that the DOJ would pursue prosecution of any federal crimes related to the incident.
“Attacks against law enforcement and the intimidation of Christians are being met with the full force of federal law,” Bondi said. “If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails.”
Protests against ICE in Minnesota have escalated after a federal agent in Minneapolis fatally shot U.S. citizen Renee Good. Videos taken by bystanders and posted online at the time appeared to show an officer approaching a vehicle stopped in the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.
The car begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle draws his gun and fires at least two shots at close range. Federal and state officials have clashed over whether the shooting was justified.
