Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Allen, who were arrested and charged for their role in an anti-ICE demonstration that disrupted Sunday church services in St Paul, Minnesota, have been released.
Video of the two women posted online showed them emerging from detention on Friday, raising their fists and embracing their loved ones. “Thank you all for being here,” Levy Armstrong said. “Glory to God!”
A federal judge ordered their release earlier in the day, ruling that the government had failed “to meet its burden to demonstrate that a detention hearing is warranted, or that detention is otherwise appropriate”.
A judge has also ordered the released of a third activist involved in the church protest, William Kelly, saying he was not a danger to the public, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
On Thursday, the White House was caught posting a digitally altered image of Armstrong’s arrest on social media, which had been manipulated to falsely portray her as crying, and to darken her skin.
The photo was captioned in all caps: “Arrested far-left agitator Nekima Levy Armstrong for orchestrating church riots in Minnesota.”
The deception was uncovered by the Guardian and other news outlets, in part because the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, had earlier posted the original image which showed Armstrong looking composed.
On Friday, , Armstrong’s non-profit, Racial Justice Network, released video of her arrest recorded by her husband, Marques Armstrong, which further revealed the extent to which the White House had distorted reality to fabricate propaganda intended to embarrass her.
The video, posted on the non-profit group’s Facebook page, shows Armstrong had even asked the agents why they were recording her detention.
“I’m asking you to please treat me with dignity and respect,” she said to the agents.
“We have to put you in handcuffs,” one agent said, while another held up a phone and appeared to record a video.
“Why are you recording?” Armstrong asked. “I would ask that you not record.”
“It’s not going to be on Twitter,” the agent filming said. “It’s not going to be on anything like that.”
“We don’t want to create a false narrative,” the agent said.
At no point in the more than seven-minute video – which shows Armstrong being handcuffed and led into a government vehicle – did Armstrong lose her composure or cry. Instead, she talked with agents about her arrest.
“You know that this is a significant abuse of power,” she said. “Because I refuse to be silent in the face of brutality from ICE.”
“I’m not in here to get in a political debate,” the agent filming said.
In an audio message Armstrong’s spokesperson shared with the Associated Press, Armstrong said the video of her arrest exposes that the Trump administration had used AI to manipulate images of her arrest.
“We are being politically persecuted for speaking out against authoritarianism, fascism and the tyranny of the Trump administration,” said Armstrong, who recorded the message on Friday morning during a call with her husband from jail.
“I surrendered myself peacefully, deliberately, and with intention,” Armstrong said in a statement released with the video of her arrest. “I demanded dignity, humanity, and respect, not just for myself, but for every person who has ever been brutalized, silenced, or disappeared by unchecked government power. We stood in protest because families are being torn apart, communities terrorized, and constitutional rights trampled. And we will not be intimidated into silence.”
