Family Worship Center Pentecostal Church of Holiness, Inc. v. See, (ED WI, April 12, 2013), is an unusual case in which a church and two of its members filed suit against the city of Milwaukee and two police officers challenging the action of the police in pursuing a mentally disturbed man into the church and arresting him in the pulpit area. The court dismissed plaintiffs' equal protection claim, holding:
That someone believes that the officers "probably" would have treated a white congregation differently does not constitute direct proof of purposeful discrimination by the officers present on the evening of December 10, 2006.
The court also dismissed various state tort law claims. However, the court concluded that there are 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendment, as well as other state law, claims that must go to trial. The court summarized plaintiffs' 1st Amendment free exercise allegations:
Here, plaintiffs have produced evidence that [Officers] See and Humitz stayed for some time after Jones's arrest ignoring church members' requests to leave so that they could continue their worship. In addition, See ordered the music to stop and ordered a child—speaking in tongues—to "shut up."
