(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) One of the parishioners who endured the vicious riot inside Cities Church has sued former CNN anchor-turned-YouTuber Don Lemon over the “severe emotional distress” she sustained during the chaos.
Ann Doucette, a Minnesota churchgoer, said she was inside Cities Church on Jan. 18 when Lemon and a group of radical agitators broke in to protest ICE, according to The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Doucette alleged in a federal lawsuit that the disruption interfered with her constitutional right to freely exercise her religion and resulted in “severe emotional distress, fear, anxiety and trauma.”
Representing herself, Doucette is seeking monetary damages for trespass, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and interference with religious exercise.
She is also asking a federal judge to bar the defendants from entering the church or disrupting future services.
The lawsuit details how the agitators took over the church after learning that Cities Church pastor David Easterwood also served as a top ICE official in Minnesota.
The agitators chanted “ICE Out!” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.”
According to a federal indictment against Lemon, some of the rioters also approached a child and told him that their parents were “nazis” and that the church was a house of worship for the devil.
Doucette lists nine individuals as defendants, including Lemon, left-wing agitator Nekima Levy Armstrong and self-described “journalist” Georgia Fort.
The other defendants are Will Kelly, St. Paul School Board Member Chauntyll Allen, Jerome Richardson, Trahern Crews and Jamael Lundy.
A spokesperson for Lemon did not return a request for comment before publication.
Lemon and several other individuals who allegedly participated in the anti-ICE riot are facing federal indictments under the FACE Act.
Lemon has insisted he was merely acting as a journalist documenting the incident, not an activist, even as his own livestream showed him embedded with the group before they entered the church and as they discussed their plans
