‘You love to see it’: Christian victim of Minnesota church invasion sues Don Lemon

One of the victims of former CNN anchor Don Lemon’s disrupt-a-church-worship service protest stunt now has sued him for damages.

TMZ said it obtained court documents revealing that Ann Doucette, who said she was attending worship at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Jan. 18. when Lemon and anti-Trump rioters broke in and disrupted the service, is seeking damages for emotional distress.

The court case charges Lemon and others “unlawfully interfered” with her ability to “freely exercise her religion in a private place of worship,” a protection provided by the First Amendment.

The report said the violent disrupters, who threatened adults and terrified children by blocking their parents’ access to them and telling the kids their parents were going to hell, apparently was intended to harass the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, who works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Doucette’s legal case claims damages for “severe emotional distress, fear, anxiety, and trauma” from the actions by Lemon and others.

The case notes one protester admitted on social media to helping Lemon with “logistics and local contacts in support” of the scheme.

Lemon has claimed his actions in barging into the service, getting in peoples’ faces and interrupting their service was part of his First Amendment right as a reporter.

He also has been arrested and charged in conspiracy against the right of religious freedom at a place of worship and a count of injuring, intimidating, and interfering with the exercise of religious rights.

Social media commenters endorsed the plan:

You love to see it.

I hope more people do the same, especially parents whose children were screamed at.

— TheFOO (@PolitiBunny) February 25, 2026

This family should follow suit… pic.twitter.com/AO9bCamdPv

— JustHereToReadTheNews (@ronnieroberts84) February 25, 2026

A report at Not the Bee explained the background: “After Don Lemon helped a gang of BLM activists disrupt a church service, terrorize women and children, and tell everyone in attendance that they’re going to hell, this case sort of makes sense.”

And, it added, “If this suit is successful you can only hope about 100 more follow it.”

The pastor has been reported as saying the attack made him fear “it was an active shooter situation.”

Lemon, formerly of CNN before his firing, has pleaded not guilty to the criminal counts.

Jonathan Parnell, the pastor, had been attempting to read aloud from the Bible when agitators opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement disrupted the Jan. 18 service. He wrote about the event for WORLD magazine.

Parnell recalled that “several individuals scattered throughout the sanctuary rose together and, like a flash mob, converged with chants and clenched fists.” When the mob shouted, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” that led worshippers to flee, “fearing it was an active shooter situation.”

The agitators “had stormed into the house of God, a place of peace and refuge, and they defiled it with rage,” he said.

“In that instant, I interpreted what was going on: this was about provocation, intimidation, and spectacle,” the pastor wrote. “They were here to incite violence. The spiritual dimension of it all came into focus. A malevolent darkness was behind this—the same darkness behind the murder of pre-born children, and the mutilation of children’s bodies, and the manipulation of children’s minds. Those were all evils our children had escaped, so now the weapon was terror.”

According to the Daily Signal, he recalled, “The agitators screamed in our faces and said we weren’t a real church. They harassed individuals for their ethnicity and ‘uttered all kinds of evil’ against us falsely. They spewed lies upon lies, and our refusal to retaliate seemed only to frustrate them.”

Actually, nine people already have been indicted by a federal grand jury based on the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

In the indictment, Lemon is accused of strategizing with the group’s leaders Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Louisa Allen before the invasion, and it notes that Lemon said the group planned to “disrupt business as usual” at the church. Lemon appeared to hide the target location on his livestream, before the disruption.

Parnell did not mention Lemon by name, but he did recall the interaction, noting, “The man questioning me certainly seemed disappointed” by his cool response.

“I told him, plainly, that we had gathered to worship Jesus and that he should leave. He did not leave. He was in on the terror,” Parnell recalled.

“He continued to accost members of our congregation, eventually moving outdoors, but still on our property.”

‘In on the terror’: Minnesota pastor breaks silence on Don Lemon