by Natalia Mittelstadt
Independent Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort was arrested Friday morning in connection with a church protest in St. Paul earlier this month.
Fort recorded the moments leading up to her arrest in a Facebook livestream, saying, “Agents are at my door right now,” CBS News reported.
“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. “I’m gonna have to hop here and surrender to agents as a member of the press.”
Fort added that her attorneys advised her to “go with them…down to Whipple,” referencing the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where anti-ICE protests have occurred in recent weeks, The Hill reported.
“This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media,” she 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 added that she knew she was on a “defendant’s list” and had been following the advice of her attorneys, reiterating that she believed her constitutional rights were being infringed upon.
Her arrest came after former CNN host Don Lemon’s arrest on Thursday evening. Both he and Fort were at a protest at a service at the Cities Church in St. Paul earlier this month, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor. They said they were covering the protest as independent journalists.
It is unclear what specific charges the Fort and Lemon could face.
Ben Crump, who is a well-known civil rights attorney, posted on X that Fort and Lemon were arrested for doing their jobs, which was “documenting a protest of public concern.”
“When members of the press are taken into custody simply for filming and reporting, it sends a chilling message to every journalist in America. The First Amendment does NOT belong to the powerful; it exists to protect truth, accountability, and the public’s right to know. We must speak out when press freedom is under attack!” he added.
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Natalia Mittelstadt is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Georgia Fort” by Georgia Fort.
If she imitated Don Lemon’s performance then she got what she deserved.