photo by: Contributed

Justin Spiehs being detained by Kansas Highway Patrol Troopers on June 14, 2025, at the Statehouse in Topeka.

A former Lawrence resident who was arrested Saturday on the Capitol steps in Topeka was trespassing in a permit-only area and refused to obey all police demands that he leave, according to information Friday from the Kansas Highway Patrol.

On Monday, the Journal-World reached out to police about why Justin Spiehs was arrested at the “No Kings” rally, which drew thousands of people to Topeka — and millions to cities across the nation — to peacefully protest the Donald Trump administration.

On Friday, April M. McCollum, spokesperson for the Kansas Highway Patrol, which made the arrest, said the lead organizer of the activist group Kansas 50501, which had a permit from the Kansas Department of Administration to gather on the south side of the Statehouse, notified Capitol Police of an unauthorized individual, later identified as Spiehs, 43, standing within the permitted area. The organizer asked that he be removed.

“Capitol Police approached Mr. Spiehs and asked him several times to move outside the permitted area, with Mr. Spiehs refusing all requests,” McCollum said. “Mr. Spiehs was warned he would be removed and escorted off the property, but he continued to refuse to move outside the permitted area.”

Spiehs was arrested and booked into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections on a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass. The investigation is ongoing, McCollum said.

A photograph of Spiehs’ arrest has circulated online; it shows Spiehs in handcuffs with two officers leading him down the Capitol steps. A third officer follows, carrying what appears to be Spiehs’ sign, which reads in all caps “DEPORT FEMINIST [expletive] FIRST THEN ILLEGALS.”

Now residing in Johnson County, Spiehs is well-known for filing multiple lawsuits and attending government meetings in Lawrence, where he insists that he has the right to use obscene and degrading language to those in attendance — a stance that at least one federal judge has rejected by throwing out his lawsuit against the City of Lawrence.