DOJ vows to press charges after activists disrupt church where Minnesota ICE official is a pastor

MINNEAPOLIS — The U.S. Department of Justice said Sunday it is investigating a group of protesters in Minnesota who disrupted services at a church where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparently serves as a pastor.

A livestreamed video posted on the Facebook page of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, one of the protest's organizers, shows a group of people interrupting services at the Cities Church in St. Paul by chanting ''ICE out'' and ''Justice for Renee Good." The 37-year-old mother of three was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month amid a surge in federal immigration enforcement activities.

The protesters allege that one of the church's pastors — David Easterwood — also leads the local ICE field office overseeing the operations that have involved violent tactics and illegal arrests.

U.S. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said her agency is investigating federal civil rights violations ''by these people desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.''

''A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!'' she said on social media.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also weighed in on social media, saying that any violations of federal law would be prosecuted.

Nekima Levy Armstrong, who participated in the protest and leads the local grassroots civil rights organization Racial Justice Network, dismissed the potential DOJ investigation as a sham and a distraction from federal agents' actions in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The website of St. Paul-based Cities Church lists David Easterwood as a pastor, and his personal information appears to match that of the David Easterwood identified in court filings as the acting director of the ICE St. Paul field office. Easterwood appeared alongside DHS Secretary Kristi Noem at a Minneapolis press conference last October.

Cities Church did not respond to a phone call or emailed request for comment Sunday evening, and Easterwood's personal contact information could not immediately be located.

Easterwood did not lead the part of the service that was livestreamed, and it was unclear if he was present at the church Sunday.

In a Jan. 5 court filing, Easterwood defended ICE's tactics in Minnesota such as swapping license plates and spraying protesters with chemical irritants. He wrote that federal agents were experiencing increased threats and aggression and crowd control devices like flash-bang grenades were important to protect against violent attacks. He testified that he was unaware of agents ''knowingly targeting or retaliating against peaceful protesters or legal observers with less lethal munitions and/or crowd control devices.''

''Agitators aren't just targeting our officers. Now they're targeting churches, too,'' the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency stated. ''They're going from hotel to hotel, church to church, hunting for federal law enforcement who are risking their lives to protect Americans.''