On January 18, 2026, a band of activists burst into Cities Church in the St. Paul area during Sunday worship and shut down a service meant for prayer and community. Video from the scene shows the group chanting political slogans and confronting congregants as bewildered families and children tried to leave. This was not a peaceful sidewalk protest; it was an occupation of a sacred space in broad daylight.
The ostensible target of the mob was a pastor linked online to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a connection activists say justified their intrusion. Social media and reporting have identified David Easterwood as a pastor listed on the church’s site who also appears in federal filings as an acting ICE official, though mainstream outlets note lawmakers and reporters are still sorting through the documentation. Whatever disagreements one might have about federal enforcement, there is no right to weaponize a house of worship as a political battlefield.
At the scene was former CNN anchor Don Lemon, livestreaming the confrontation and insisting he was covering the story — a claim that did little to calm observers who watched him stand amid the agitators. Lemon’s presence and his defensive posture toward the invaders have sparked fierce backlash from people across the political spectrum who see a media elite condoning lawless behavior. Journalists should be witnesses, not enablers; when a reporter embeds with a mob that interrupts prayer, the line between observer and participant vanishes.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has said it is investigating the disruption, and senior officials have publicly put organizers and participants on notice about potential federal violations that protect houses of worship. The Biden administration’s DOJ — now under Republican leadership in the civil rights office — has signaled that disturbing a religious service can cross into federal criminal territory, and the FACE Act could come into play. If federal law was born to protect the vulnerable, it must be applied when mobs decide churches are fair game.
Church leadership at Cities Church called the invasion “unacceptable” and “shameful,” and members described children and elders frightened by people bursting into their service and chanting at the pulpit. Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell asked the intruders to leave and admonished the crowd for turning worship into a political spectacle, a response that should have been obvious to any decent American. This was a direct attack on the First Amendment freedoms of religion and assembly for ordinary parishioners, not the political class.
Conservatives should be blunt: this was sacrilege disguised as protest. The left’s newest tactic — using performative public outrage to terrorize religious communities — is an affront to every hardworking American who cherishes the right to worship in peace. Churches, synagogues, temples and mosques are sanctuaries for the soul, not stages for political theater, and leaders who sanction or cheer this behavior must be held accountable by law and by voters.
Don Lemon and other media figures who flock to these scenes must be called to account, too. When the press abandons impartiality and respects no boundary between reporting and activism, it accelerates civic breakdown and erodes trust in institutions. There should be consequences for those who turn reporting into recruitment for mobs that violate statutes designed to protect citizens from intimidation.
If the DOJ moves forward with charges, let them do so transparently and evenhandedly; if local prosecutors refuse to act, Americans must demand enforcement and protection for houses of worship. The right response is not silence or selective outrage but a firm defense of law, order, and religious liberty. Patriots should stand with the families who were robbed of their Sunday morning and insist that sacred spaces remain beyond the reach of political mobs.
