Oops: Leader of Anti-ICE Church Invasion Just Made Prosecutors’ Job a Lot Easier
Nekima Levy Armstrong — an alleged organizer of an invasion of a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations — did some of the Trump Justice Department’s work for them by posting the names of those involved in the incident on social media.
Video of the protest that Armstrong posted Sunday to her Facebook page showed a group of people disrupting a worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul, chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good.”
Armstrong leads the local grassroots civil rights organization Racial Justice Network, according to ABC News.
In a caption to her Facebook post, she wrote, “Friends, Here is a clip of our demonstration this morning at Cities Church in St. Paul. David Easterwood is a Pastor at this church and the Acting Field Director for the ICE office in St. Paul. It’s time for judgment to begin, and it will begin in the House of God!!!”
“Thank you to all of the activists who showed up + independent journalists Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, DawokeFarmer2, Brixton Hughes. Special thanks to Monique Cullars Doty, Chauntyll Allen, Satara Strong-Allen for co-organizing this mission from Black Lives Matter Minnesota & Black Lives Matter Twin Cities Metro, along with Racial Justice Network.”
ABC News noted that the assistant pastor, David Easterwood, who leads a local ICE field office, was not overseeing Sunday’s worship service, and it was not even clear he was present at the church during the incident.
Cities Church pastor Jonathan Parnell told former CNN host Don Lemon during the protest that it was “shameful.”
“This is unacceptable… It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship,” he said.
Lemon countered, “There’s a Constitution with freedom of speech and freedom to assemble in protest.”
“We’re here to worship Jesus, because that’s the hope of these cities, that’s the hope of the world, is Jesus Christ,” Parnell responded.