A tense Easter Sunday outside Cities Church in St. Paul ended with police arresting a woman after a group of protesters gathered at the Summit Avenue sanctuary and disrupted morning worship, according to authorities. Officers on scene told the crowd to knock it off; most people did, but one protester refused and was taken into custody.
Police working contracted overtime at the church reported that protesters were using a blowhorn and shouting around 8:35 a.m., loud enough to interrupt the Easter service. Officers warned the group that they could face citations and possible arrest if they did not lower the volume. According to FOX 9, after most demonstrators complied, one woman was cited on suspicion of "interference with religious observance" and for violating St. Paul noise ordinances.
Backstory: January Disruption And Federal Scrutiny
The relatively brief Easter incident follows a much more disruptive protest at Cities Church on Jan. 18, when roughly 30 to 40 demonstrators entered a Sunday service and demanded the resignation of a pastor they said worked for federal immigration authorities. The Associated Press reports that the January showdown led to a Justice Department civil rights probe and federal indictments tied to what happened inside the church that day.
Local reporting and court documents also show that Cities Church lists a person named David Easterwood as one of its pastors, and that an individual with the same name appears as a defendant in a Jan. 12 federal complaint challenging the immigration effort known as "Operation Metro Surge." The complaint is available in filings reposted by local outlets and in the original court record. KSTP has shared the Jan. 12 filing.
Legal Context
Minnesota law makes it a crime to interfere with religious observance and treats intentional physical obstruction of access to a house of worship as a gross misdemeanor, a statute officials pointed to when outlining the potential charges in Sunday’s case. For the specific language on interfering with religious observance, Minnesota Statutes §609.28 defines the offense.
St. Paul’s municipal code also limits sound levels and gives police authority to enforce rules on amplified or plainly audible noise under Chapter 293, which officers cited as part of their toolkit during the Easter response. For details on sound variances and enforcement, the Department of Safety and Inspections provides guidance, and the City of St. Paul explains Chapter 293.
What’s Next
St. Paul police did not immediately release the arrested woman’s name and declined to offer more than their basic account of what happened outside the church. Reporters noted that Cities Church was quiet the day after the Easter disruption, even as the larger January protest and the federal prosecutions that grew out of it continue to work their way through the system. MPR News has additional reporting on Sunday’s scene and the ongoing legal fallout.
