Independent Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort arrested at AG Pam Bondi's direction over church protest
Independent Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort is among those Attorney General Pam Bondi says have been taken into custody over what Bondi says was a "coordinated attack" involving anti-ICE protests at Cities Church in St. Paul earlier this month.
Bondi announced that former CNN anchor Don Lemon had also been arrested, alongside Trahern Jeen Crews and Jamael Lyndell Lundy, the latter of whom is presently running for the state's 65th senate district.
Prosecutors say they were involved in a protest that arose upon the discovery that a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also serves as a pastor at the church.
Fort went live on Facebook for two minutes Friday morning, telling viewers that federal agents were at her door to arrest her, and she was going to go with them to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in south Minneapolis, which has served as the processing and detention center for those taken into custody during Operation Metro Surge.
"Agents are at my door right now. They're saying that they were able to go before a grand jury sometime, I guess, in the last 24 hours, and that they have a warrant for my arrest," Fort said in her livestream. "I'm gonna have to hop here and surrender to agents as a member of the press."
In Fort's video, children can be heard crying in the background.
"This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media," Fort said. "It's hard to understand how we have a Constitution, constitutional rights, when you can just be arrested for being a member of the press."
Fort said she was aware that she was on a list of defendants, but did not publish it because it was sealed.
"It is an outrage that a vetted and credentialed member of the media would be in any way prosecuted for doing her appointed duty in covering news. If the federal government can come for Georgia no member of the supposed 'free' press is safe," a representative for the Center for Broadcast Journalism said Friday morning. "Fort, who has been a frontline journalist in multiple media markets, is one of the more valued members of our Twin Cities media landscape. A three-time Emmy winner, Fort was one of the only reporters allowed inside the courtroom during the landmark trial of Derek Chauvin."
Friday's arrests aren't the first connected with the protest at the church. Last week, former Twin Cities NAACP president Nekima Levy Armstrong, St. Paul School Board member Chauntyll Louisa Allen and William Kelly were also arrested and later released. The White House tipped further furor when it posted an altered photo of Levy Armstrong's arrest to make it appear as though she was crying while in handcuffs.
Bondi also announced this week the arrests of 16 others for alleged assaults on immigration enforcement officers during Operation Metro Surge.
On Friday, faith and community leaders and other volunteers are set to demonstrate at the Whipple building over the Trump administration's "moves to escalate its attacks on Minnesotans' freedoms."
