WASHINGTON (AP) — Journalist Don Lemon and three other individuals have been arrested Friday in reference to an anti-immigration protest that disrupted a carrier at a Minnesota church and increased tensions between residents and the Trump administration, officials said.
Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been overlaying the Grammy Awards, his attorney Abbe Lowell said. It is unclear what charge or charges Lemon and the others are facing in the Jan. 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul. Lemon’s arrest came after a magistrate judge last week rejected prosecutors’ initial uncover to charge him.
Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023, has said he has no affiliation to the organization that went into the church and that he was there as a journalist chronicling protesters.
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally safe work in Minneapolis was no utterly different than what he has always achieved,” Lowell said in a statement. “The First Amendment exists to guard journalists whose function it is to shine light on the reality and have these in vitality accountable.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media Friday morning confirming the arrest of Lemon and the others who have been present in the course of the protest at the church where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor.
“At my course, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fortress, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in reference to the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Bondi said.
Since he left CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into trade for himself, posting regularly on YouTube. He hasn’t hidden his disdain for Trump. Yet in the course of his on-line reveal from the church, he said repeatedly, “I’m no longer here as an activist. I’m here as a journalist.” He described the scene in front of him, and interviewed churchgoers and demonstrators.
Quickly after the first attempt to charge him fell by, he predicted on his reveal that the administration would try again.
“And wager what,” he said, “here I am. Preserve attempting. That’s no longer going to pause me from being a journalist. That’s no longer going to decrease my announce. Waddle ahead, make me into the unique Jimmy Kimmel, if you want. Good attain it. Because I’m no longer going anywhere.”
Local autonomous journalist Georgia Fortress livestreamed the moments earlier than her arrest Friday on Facebook Reside, saying “agents are at my door moral now” and that they had an arrest warrant and a grand jury indictment.
“I don’t really feel love I have my first amendment moral as a member of the press because now the federal agents are at my door arresting me for filming the church protest a few weeks ago,” Fortress said, adding that she knew she was on a checklist of defendants that is below seal.
A distinguished civil rights attorney and two other individuals bright about the protest have been arrested last week. Prosecutors have accused them of civil rights violations for disrupting the Cities Church carrier.
The Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation after the neighborhood interrupted services and products by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Apt,” referring to the 37-year-archaic mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.
“Pay attention loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in social media post last week.
Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists certainly one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads an ICE topic place of job. Many Baptist churches have pastors who also work other jobs.
The Justice Department’s swift investigation into the church disruption stands in contrast to its resolution no longer to launch a civil rights investigation into Apt’s killing by an ICE officer. The department has no longer said whether it may launch a civil rights probe into the killing of 37-year-archaic Alex Pretti by federal officers.
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and sources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing on this case,” Lowell said.
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Associated Press newshounds Dave Bauder in Unusual York City, Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed.
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