FILE - Don Lemon attends the 15th annual CNN Heroes All-Star Tribute at the American Museum of Natural History, Sunday, Dec. 12, 2021, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

WASHINGTON — Journalist Don Lemon and three other people were arrested Friday in connection with an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church and increased tensions between residents and federal officials.

Lemon was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been covering 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, 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 protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” Lowell said in a statement. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media Friday morning confirming the arrest of Lemon and the others who were present during the protest at the church where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor.

“At my direction, early this morning federal agents arrested Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort, and Jamael Lydell Lundy, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota,” Bondi said.

‘Keep trying’

Since he left CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into business for himself, posting regularly on YouTube. He hasn’t hidden his disdain for President Donald Trump. Yet during his online show from the church, he said repeatedly, “I’m not here as an activist. I’m here as a journalist.” He described the scene in front of him, and interviewed churchgoers and demonstrators.

A magistrate last week rejected prosecutors’ initial bid to charge the veteran journalist. Shortly after, he predicted on his show that the administration would try again.

“And guess what,” he said, “here I am. Keep trying. That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. That’s not going to diminish my voice. Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want. Just do it. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton called Lemon’s arrest “alarming” saying Trump and his administration is using a “sledge hammer” on “the knees of the First Amendment.”

“We cannot let Donald Trump put tape over our mouths to muffle our right to free speech, when his administration is conducting some of the most heinous actions in American history,” Sharpton said in a statement.

Discouraging scrutiny

Fort, a local independent journalist, livestreamed the moments before her arrest Friday on Facebook Live, saying “agents are at my door right now” with an arrest warrant and a grand jury indictment.

“I don’t feel like I have my first amendment right 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,” Fort said, adding that she knew she was on a list of defendants that is under seal.

It was not immediately clear if Fort and the two other Minnesotans who were arrested have attorneys.

Kelly McBride, a senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, said these arrests and the recent search of a Washington Post journalist’s home send a clear message discouraging journalists from documenting opposition to the Trump administration

“This is all about intimidation. And it appears that this administration does not like being scrutinized by the public and journalists. They don’t want people to see what they’re doing,” McBride said.

Crews is a leader of Black Lives Matter Minnesota who has led many protests and actions for racial justice, particularly following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in 2020.

After Trump administration officials said earlier this month that arrests would be coming in the church protest, Crews told The Associated Press there’s a “tradition” of Black activists and leaders being targeted or subjected to violence.

“Just as being a Black person, you always have to have that in mind,” Crews said.

Protesters charged previously

A prominent civil rights attorney and two other people involved in the protest were arrested last week. Prosecutors have accused them of civil rights violations for disrupting the Cities Church service.

The Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

“Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP,” Bondi wrote in social media post last week.

Jordan Kushner, an attorney for Nekima Levy Armstrong, who was in the first group arrested, said he has not seen the indictment, but he said it might be unsealed or at least given to all the parties later Friday.

“The prosecutions are beyond the pale,” Kushner told AP. “They’re a complete affront to our fundamental constitutional rights to disagree with the government, to protest against the government. Nonviolent protest is not a federal felony.”

Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads an ICE field office. 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 decision not to open a civil rights investigation into Good’s killing by an ICE officer. The department has not said whether it will open a civil rights probe into the killing of 37-year-old 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 resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell said.

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Associated Press reporters Dave Bauder and Aaron Morrison in New York City; Steve Karnowski and Jack Brook in Minneapolis; and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed.