Within hours, four journalists were arrested for reporting on a protest at a Minneapolis church whose pastor is accused of having ties to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Georgia Fort, a journalist reporting on police violence. Trahern Crews, a seasoned community organizer. Jamael Lundy, a Black candidate for the Minnesota State Senate. And Don Lemon, a journalist and former network news anchor. Each was detained while performing the kind of public work on which democracy depends.
Each had raised questions—directly or indirectly—about the federal killings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, two civilians shot by ICE agents. Their arrests weren’t random. They were coordinated. And they signaled a new stage in the erosion of democratic norms: the public targeting of people who hold the power to hold others accountable.
These weren’t routine arrests. They disrupted essential democratic functions. They cut short the work of people engaged in civic life. And they happened in rapid succession, as if testing the limits of what could go unnoticed. We have seen this dynamic building. Since Trump’s second inauguration, protest leaders have been charged under
Author: Victoria Uwumarogie
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