William Kelly, an anti-Trump agitator traveling across the country to sites of political conflict, appeared to be a central figure in the shutdown of Sunday services at Cities Church, a Christian parish in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Kelly, alongside a mob of activists, allegedly stormed Cities Church over the weekend, disrupting a Sunday sermon based on allegations that one of the pastors, David Easterwood, is an ICE official. A man with the same name and likeness serves as ICE’s acting director for the agency’s St. Paul field office.
Afterward, on social media, Kelly said he had “the honor of protesting David Easterwood’s church with Nekima Armstrong and the Racial Justice Network!”
Nekima Levy Armstrong, head of the Minnesota-based Racial Justice Network, was the chief coordinator of the well-organized church protest.
BLM COALITION BEHIND ANTI-ICE SHUTDOWN OF MINNEAPOLIS CHURCH SERVICE
Armstrong later thanked Kelly and former CNN host Don Lemon in a Facebook post for their efforts. Lemon, Kelly, and other “independent journalists” were reportedly privy to operational plans kept under wraps until the so-called “surprise operation” actually unfolded.
At the church, Lemon and Kelly recorded the protesters carrying out the “clandestine mission,” adding narration that couched their conduct as constitutionally protected activity.
Notably, when the activists initially assembled in a nearby parking lot, the protest’s staging grounds, Lemon met them there and began livestreaming before they barged into Cities Church that morning.
Kelly, during the demonstration, filmed himself directly confronting lead pastor Jonathan Parnell and shouting in the faces of parishioners, even following them to their cars with crying children in tow.
“I had no idea I was going to the church that day,” Kelly said when contacted by the Washington Examiner. “I saw a flyer for a protest and showed up to support the Black Community.”
A staple in the anti-ICE activism scene, Kelly appears at pop-up protests all around the country, deploying confrontational tactics intended to provoke his political opponents.
Most recently, Kelly left Minneapolis for an anti-Tesla rally in downtown Los Angeles on Jan. 16, took a red-eye flight to Chicago for a protest outside an ICE facility on Jan. 17, and jetted back to Minneapolis in time for the Cities Church occupation on Jan. 18.
In a message to supporters, Kelly told his followers, “I plan on organizing some larger movements across the country! I will do my best to come support every city being attacked by fascism!”
Kelly, known as “DaWoke Farmer” on TikTok, crowdfunds financing for his cross-country trips through a standing campaign on GoFundMe, originally titled “Help Me to Continue Agitating the Nazis.”
“Road Trip!! Help me travel the Nation scolding the Gestapo for their bad decisions!” Kelly, who also collects contributions on CashApp, captioned the fundraising campaign. “No rest for demons!”
To date, the GoFundMe page has raised over $43,000 in donations, many of them coming in after the Department of Justice threatened to file federal charges against the organizers and collaborators of the church protest.
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Lemon, in particular, has been put “on notice” by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, chief of the DOJ’s civil rights division, for possible violations of the FACE Act, a federal law protecting places of worship from protests.
As seen on Lemon’s livestream, the former CNN host bought donuts and coffee at a Starbucks location and then distributed them to protesters. “Don Lemon is on the front lines right now!” one anti-ICE activist announced on a megaphone. “Don Lemon’s got coffee for y’all!” To which Lemon added, “And donuts.”
“Whoever paid for, coordinated, or participated in this attack made a big—BIG—mistake,” Harmeet warned. “No worshipper in this country should ever feel intimidated in a house of God, and @TheJusticeDept will bring the full force of the law, as directed by [Attorney General Pam Bondi].”
In response, Kelly said he was protesting “a white supremacist church.”
“F**k ‘em!” Kelly reacted, dismissing the DOJ investigation and further challenging federal officials to arrest him. “They wanna come after me? F**k ‘em!”
In an expletive-filled video statement, Kelly claimed that Muslim immigrants in Minnesota are not able to pray without the fear of ICE raiding their mosques. “How do they deserve any f**king different?” Kelly said, referring to the Christian churchgoers. “F**k those f**king Nazis! Come and get me, Pam Bondi, you f**king traitorous b*tch.”
Kelly insisted to the Washington Examiner that they were invited into the church, countering claims that the protesters trespassed.
“We preached the words of Jesus. We left,” Kelly said. “They never asked us to leave. The police never talked to us. The service continued with music and prayer the entire time we were in there.”
Calling the threats of charges “baseless,” Kelly said his lawyers assured him that he would prevail should prosecutors bring a case against him.
Justin Overbaugh, the U.S. deputy undersecretary of war for intelligence and security, informed Bondi on X that Kelly has also been part of a mob that routinely harasses congregants at Christ Church, a parish attended by War Secretary Pete Hegseth in Washington, D.C.
Since the church’s founding last summer, the group gathers on the premises weekly, blaring bullhorns to disrupt church services “in clear violation of the law,” Overbaugh said.
DOJ PROBING ANTI-ICE PROTEST AT MINNEAPOLIS CHURCH SERVICE
The situation grew so serious that one churchgoer was sent to the hospital with a shattered eardrum after a protester “let loose with the full force of a bullhorn in his ear,” Joe Rigney, a pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, which founded the D.C. church, wrote for the Christian news magazine World.
Kelly has a reputation as one of the most disruptive regulars stationed outside the church.
“He screams incredibly vile and gross things at families, at children, at people,” a Christ Church member told Fox News. “He’s called my wife a c*nt, a wh*re, and a Nazi breeder, all sorts of fun things.”
Kelly and others screaming such obscenities as parishioners enter and exit the sanctuary has culminated in the parish’s requests for police escorts.
Last month, Kelly captured on camera one of his profanity-laden confrontations with Hegseth.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” Kelly said in a December podcast appearance. “I go to his church almost every Sunday, and I miss him every time. So this was a long time coming.”
Some of Kelly’s other past targets include members of the National Guard, whom he heckled near Union Station less than two weeks after two troops were ambushed by gunfire in the nation’s capital.
Kelly was arrested in December for allegedly stalking a random father, calling the man “a Nazi piece of sh*t” while his children watched. According to Kelly, investigators are “moving forward with disorderly conduct charges” against him.
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Dhillon confirmed that Kelly was recently arrested and released days prior to the Cities Church protest in Minnesota for allegedly impeding ICE. After authorities set him free on Friday, Kelly claimed that he was “kidnapped by ICE.”
Kelly told the Washington Examiner that he is now suing the Department of Homeland Security on wrongful arrest and excessive violence claims in connection to Friday’s arrest.
“I will not be intimidated,” Kelly said. “The real violation of the FACE Act is being carried out by [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem every single day. The fear caused by her masked goons and their disregard of due process leaves us citizens afraid to leave their homes. They are afraid to go to mass or prayer!”
