By Alexis TaylorAFRO Managing Editor
Veteran reporter Don Lemon and Minnesota-based journalist Georgia Fort have been arrested roughly two weeks after offering protection of a protest in a Minnesota church.
Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, launched an announcement on the arrest.
“Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal brokers final evening in Los Angeles, the place he was masking the Grammy awards. Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no completely different than what he has all the time performed,” wrote Lowell. “The First Modification exists to guard journalists whose function it’s to shine gentle on the reality and maintain these in energy accountable. There is no such thing as a extra vital time for folks like Don to be doing this work.”
On Jan. 30, Georgia Fort made a Fb livestream reporting that federal brokers had been outdoors of her door.
“They’re saying that they had been capable of go earlier than a grand jury someday–I suppose–within the final 24 hours…they’ve a warrant for my arrest,” she stated within the video. “I’m being suggested to go together with them.”
The arrests are tied to a Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church, situated in St. Paul, Minn. In the course of the demonstration, protestors stood up in the course of the service and publicly questioned church management about Pastor David Easterwood, who can be performing director of the Saint Paul Area Workplace for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Protestors had been capable of piece collectively Easterwood’s function within the company utilizing public paperwork, a C-SPAN press convention video the place he recognized himself and the church’s web site.
Tensions have been excessive across the nation because the capturing deaths of Keith Porter Jr., Renee Good and Alex Pretti by the hands of federal brokers. Good and Pretti had been protesting the brutal immigration raids after they had been killed in January 2026, whereas Porter was shot by an off-duty ICE agent on Dec. 31, 2025.
Lemon met up with protesters earlier than the demonstration, adopted them to the church however was not within the constructing when the protest started, as evidenced in his livestream from Jan. 18. A member of his group entered the church as an alternative, capturing audio of a church chief talking earlier than the viewers.
“Chasten us to get thy home so as,” a pastor is heard saying, shortly earlier than the primary protestor, Nekima Levy Armstrong, an activist, lawyer and reverend, stands up and begins to talk.
As soon as the service was interrupted, Lemon entered to seize footage of the activists as they decried the pastor’s work with ICE and implored members of the congregation to face up for the immigrant group by demanding federal brokers go away Minnesota.
“I really feel we did what wanted to be performed at the moment,” stated Armstrong in an interview with Lemon outdoors of the church. “I believe that the individuals who worship right here must determine which aspect are they on–the aspect of the Lord, fact, righteousness or justice, or the aspect that pretends to be on the Lord whereas harboring somebody who helps to perpetuate evil on our group. The man who oversees ICE brokers. How dare you declare to be a minister of Jesus!”
“You can’t be a pastor whereas additionally being the director of the sphere workplace for ICE in St. Paul,” she continued. “Completely not.”
In the course of the livestream, nonetheless accessible on Lemon’s YouTube Channel, he may be heard clearly saying “I’m not a part of the group. I’m a journalist.”
“We’re right here simply chronicling and reporting. We’re not a part of the activists, however we’re right here simply reporting on them,” says Lemon, including later that “that is what the First Modification is about.”
“The Civil Rights Motion was about these very sorts of protests. And for some purpose, in our trendy period, folks assume that with the intention to have protests, you’ve acquired to be cordoned off to a sure space,” stated Lemon, to his viewers.
Days after peacefully disrupting the service, on Jan. 22, Armstrong was taken into federal custody.
“Homeland Safety Investigators and FBI brokers arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong who performed a key function in orchestrating the Church Riots in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is being charged with a federal crime beneath 18 USC 241,” stated Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem in a social media replace. “Spiritual freedom is the bedrock of the US – there is no such thing as a first modification proper to impede somebody from practising their faith.”
Although Armstrong was taken into custody along with her head held excessive, White Home officers determined to publish a picture generated by synthetic intelligence, displaying the activist dramatically crying upon her arrest.
After Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelley had been taken into custody.
“Title 18, U.S.C., Part 241 makes it illegal for 2 or extra individuals to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any particular person of any state, territory or district within the free train or enjoyment of any proper or privilege secured to him/her by the Structure or the legal guidelines of the US, (or due to his/her having exercised the identical),” stated DHS officers, in a press launch on the arrests.
Now, Lemon, Fort and others have been taken into custody.
“Early this morning, @FBI and @HSI_HQ companions arrested 4 people in connection to the January 18 coordinated focusing on of Cities Church in Minnesota: Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy,” stated FBI Director Kash Patel on X.
The arrests prompted a response from Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists President Errin Haines.
“NABJ is outraged and deeply alarmed by the arrest of veteran journalist Don Lemon by federal brokers in Los Angeles whereas he was working, and by the federal government’s escalating effort and actions to criminalize and threaten press freedom beneath the guise of legislation enforcement,” she stated.
The Human Rights Marketing campaign additionally weighed in on the arrests.
“The arrests are a wide ranging escalation of the Trump Administration’s all-out assault on the US Structure, together with conducting unconstitutional searches of individuals’s properties, attacking voting rights, weaponizing the FCC in opposition to free speech, and focusing on the rights and well being of LGBTQ+ folks at each flip,” stated Human Rights Marketing campaign President Kelley Robinson, in an announcement.
Lemon’s arrest was a shock to some, because it comes after a Jan. 23 determination by a federal Justice of the Peace choose to not cost the previous CNN host for his actions whereas masking the Jan. 18 protest. Lemon’s lawyer believes the federal authorities ought to spend their time doing one thing extra productive on behalf of the American folks.
“As a substitute of investigating the federal brokers who killed two peaceable Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Division is devoting its time, consideration and sources to this arrest, and that’s the actual indictment of wrongdoing on this case,” stated Lowell. “This unprecedented assault on the First Modification and clear try to distract consideration from the numerous crises going through this administration won’t stand. Don will combat these prices vigorously and totally in court docket.”
