Feb. 2, 2026
Federal authorities arrested two more suspects in the Minnesota church invasion, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday.
“If you riot in a place of worship, we WILL find you,” Bondi wrote on X.
“We have made two more arrests in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota: Ian Davis Austin and Jerome Deangelo Richardson,” she added.
Both Austin and Richardson appear in the indictment that a federal grand jury handed down Thursday.
The grand jury indicted nine defendants for violating the Ku Klux Klan Act and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act earlier this month when they entered Cities Church in St. Paul amid an invasion of the service.
The Klan Act criminalizes the deprivation of rights, and the Justice Department has claimed the church invaders deprived worshippers of their First Amendment right to religious exercise. The FACE Act protects access to houses of worship.
Between 30 and 40 anti-ICE agitators interrupted the Jan. 18 service at Cities Church. They shouted, “Justice for Renee Good!” as they surrounded members of the congregation.
Videos of the incident show the pastor and others repeatedly asking the agitators to leave, and the agitators chanting, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”
According to the charging document, a member of the congregation said worshippers were “terrorized, our children were weeping.” One woman broke her arm. Agitators blocked about 50 members of the congregation from exiting, making it “nearly impossible for parishioners to get out and leave.”
The document also mentions that agitators prevented congregants from getting to their children, and one of the agitators reportedly told young children, “Do you know your parents are Nazis, they’re going to burn in hell?”
Levy-Armstrong, leader of the Radicial Racial Justice Network and a former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, told Democracy Now that she does not regret helping to lead the protest.
Federal authorities arrested two more suspects in the Minnesota church invasion, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Monday.
“If you riot in a place of worship, we WILL find you,” Bondi wrote on X.
“We have made two more arrests in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota: Ian Davis Austin and Jerome Deangelo Richardson,” she added.
Both Austin and Richardson appear in the indictment that a federal grand jury handed down Thursday.
The grand jury indicted nine defendants for violating the Ku Klux Klan Act and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act earlier this month when they entered Cities Church in St. Paul amid an invasion of the service.
The Klan Act criminalizes the deprivation of rights, and the Justice Department has claimed the church invaders deprived worshippers of their First Amendment right to religious exercise. The FACE Act protects access to houses of worship.
Between 30 and 40 anti-ICE agitators interrupted the Jan. 18 service at Cities Church. They shouted, “Justice for Renee Good!” as they surrounded members of the congregation.
Videos of the incident show the pastor and others repeatedly asking the agitators to leave, and the agitators chanting, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”
According to the charging document, a member of the congregation said worshippers were “terrorized, our children were weeping.” One woman broke her arm. Agitators blocked about 50 members of the congregation from exiting, making it “nearly impossible for parishioners to get out and leave.”
The document also mentions that agitators prevented congregants from getting to their children, and one of the agitators reportedly told young children, “Do you know your parents are Nazis, they’re going to burn in hell?”
Levy-Armstrong, leader of the Radicial Racial Justice Network and a former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, told Democracy Now that she does not regret helping to lead the protest.
