The woman who helped organize the invasion of a St. Paul, Minnesota, church in the middle of service last month now faces an ethics complaint that may cost her the ability to practice law in the state.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, a former president of the Minneapolis NAACP, has admitted to leading the agitators who invaded Cities Church on Sunday, Jan. 18. Agitators said they targeted the church because one of its pastors also works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Armstrong faces federal charges for interfering with the First Amendment rights of Christians, and she has pleaded not guilty.
In order to practice law in Minnesota, attorneys must maintain an active license with the Minnesota Lawyer Registration Office and abide by professional standards.
The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility in Minnesota investigates and prosecutes complaints of unethical conduct by lawyers, and the Center to Advance Security in America filed a complaint against Armstrong last month.
“Nekima Levy Armstrong’s outrageous behavior in leading aggressive activists into a church during worship and potentially committing a federal crime is unacceptable conduct for an attorney,” James Fitzpatrick, the center’s director, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “We are hopeful the Minnesota Bar will initiate an investigation based on our complaint and are encouraged to see the Department of Justice investigating the matter.”
The Church Invasion
A federal grand jury indicted 39 people, including Armstrong, on two charges: violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which also protects access to churches; and violating the Ku Klux Klan Act, which criminalizes efforts to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights—in this case, the right to the free exercise of religion.
According to the indictment, between 20 and 40 agitators, who claimed to be opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement because one of the church’s pastors worked for ICE, refused to leave when asked and shouted, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”
The indictment also mentions that agitators screamed at crying children, blocked parents from getting to their children in Sunday School, and that one agitator told a child his parents were Nazis and going to hell.
Armstrong organized the church invasion, and began the incident by interrupting service with “loud declarations about the church harboring a ‘director of ICE’ and indicating that the time for judgment had come,” according to the indictment.
At her apparent direction, “other co-conspirators immediately joined in by yelling and blowing whistles in a takeover attack on the church, all of which quickly caused the situation in the church to become chaotic, menacing, and traumatizing to church members.”
Violating Professional Ethics?
The Center to Advance Security in America complaint, filed on Jan. 22, accuses Armstrong of violating the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Rules of Professional Conduct in at least two ways.
The complaint notes that the rules forbid a lawyer from committing “a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer in other respects.” They also forbid harassment “on the basis of … religion.”
The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment. The office typically does not announce investigations, and its investigations can last as long as a year.
Fitzpatrick told The Daily Signal that he has not heard from the office since filing the complaint.
