Christian evangelist Mike Gulley was arrested on Sunday at a public art festival in South Bend, Indiana, despite his apparent willingness to cooperate with police orders.

Video reviewed by The Sentinel shows multiple police officers confronting a group of Christians at Rebel Art Fest, an annual event at Potawatomi Park advertised as open to the public, while the group held signs and distributed literature about the abolition of abortion. The police directed the Christians to exit the park, asserting that the event was private because there were a certain number of vendors offering their services at the property.

The group of Christians complied and moved across the street which bordered the park. Gulley walked with the group away from the vendors but remained on what appeared to be the edge of the property, asking for an ordinance number that communicated the requirement before he crossed the street with the rest of the group. The officers, one of whom admitted that he did not know the ordinance number, then handcuffed and arrested Gulley for criminal trespassing.

The Sentinel was unable to identify the precise ordinance which Gulley allegedly violated and contacted the South Bend Police Department, St. Joseph County Police Department, and the City of South Bend Venues Parks and Arts Department for information. None of the entities have yet responded to the requests for comment.

Davis Younts, a constitutional attorney based in Pennsylvania, said in remarks to The Sentinel that an arrest “did not seem necessary” based on the video he reviewed.

“He complied with the officer’s instructions and moved to another area of the park away from vendors,” he said. “When the police approached him again he asked a simple question and they did not give him an opportunity to comply. This appears to be unnecessary escalation by the officers and focused more on policing the content of speech than on proper law enforcement.”

Brent Buckley, a member of the group who recorded the video of the arrest, told The Sentinel that the Christians were attempting to engage attendees in conversation. The group did not use noise amplification and were present at the event for more than an hour before police arrived.

Gulley said in an interview with The Sentinel that he was motivated to share the forgiveness of sins found in Jesus Christ. “Our goal was to share the gospel and confront the prevailing evils of society like abortion and transgenderism,” he recounted. “Our general message was ‘abortion is murder and the answer to sin is the gospel, so repent and believe in Jesus.’ Lots of these societal problems go away if we start following Jesus.”

The Sentinel reported earlier this month about another viral video in which Marcus Schroeder, a nineteen-year-old Christian, was arrested in Watertown, Wisconsin, while reading the Bible with noise amplification near a drag queen performance meant for children. Gulley contended that American culture is becoming less tolerant toward Christians as various societal ills are accepted.

“Our society is becoming more and more evil, and more and more dark, and decaying rapidly morally,” he said. “It makes sense that we would see an increase in lack of tolerance for Christians.”