Arizona man threatened with arrest for preaching at holiday festival files lawsuit
David Hoffman alleges Tucson police told him discussing Jesus at the Winterhaven Festival of Lights would be considered "sermonizing" under a new policy.
An Arizona street evangelist is suing the city of Tucson and challenging an event policy barring religious speech after police officers threatened to arrest him for discussing Jesus at an annual holiday festival.
David Hoffman has been evangelizing at public events for over a decade and views large public gatherings as crucial to his Christian ministry.
"What we do is we share the gospel with people that are most likely never going to go into a church, and we go to events and places where there's not already a Christian witness, and we have conversations," he told Fox News Digital.
For nearly ten years, Hoffman regularly attended Tuscon's Winterhaven Festival of Lights, a free holiday event where thousands of visitors walk through a residential neighborhood to view light displays. But during the December 2025 festival, Hoffman said city police officers barred him from sharing his faith and threatened him with criminal trespassing charges under new event rules.
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"Upon entering the event, we were told that we can't have any kind of religious expression," Hoffman told Fox News Digital. "They said that you can be there to participate in looking at the lights. But the moment, you know, we tried to talk to somebody or give out a gospel tract, that would lead to a violation of what they were enforcing."
According to a federal lawsuit filed on Hoffman’s behalf by First Liberty Institute, the city of Tucson adopted an event solicitation policy last year prohibiting "religious, political, or issue-based leafleting" with signs posted at entrances relaying these prohibitions and warning that violators could face removal and trespassing charges enforced by Tucson police.
When Hoffman attempted to speak with attendees, officers approached Hoffman and said he could not be inside "doing the preaching." When Hoffman asked if his volume was an issue, an officer explained that "it's the sending of your message, which is one of the prohibited rules," according to the complaint.
The officer went on to tell Hoffman that asking someone if they would like to discuss Jesus amounted to "sermonizing," adding that "once you start sermonizing, that becomes a problem," according to the complaint.
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"At one point, Hoffman is stopped by a couple of police," First Liberty legal counsel Garrett Bell told Fox News Digital. "And he says, 'Well, what if someone comes up to me and asks me, how can I be saved? Can I respond to them?' And the officers told him, 'No, if you want to have that conversation with them, you're going to have to step outside the perimeter of the event.'"
According to the complaint, officers and an event organizer told Hoffman the speech restrictions were city policy established in response to past complaints. After repeated warnings, four uniformed Tucson police officers escorted Hoffman out of the festival under threat of arrest.
Officers told him he could preach in a designated "free expression zone" outside the festival perimeter, according to the complaint.
"When I saw it, it kind of looked like a cage because they had these barricades set up, and they said, 'You can be in that corner over there,'" Hoffman said. "And it felt kind of, just really, it felt funny because it's like, you know, putting the Christians over kind of in this specific area."
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First Liberty alleges the barricaded zone was set up alongside a busy street which made engaging in conversations with people passing by impractical.
The legal group says commercial food vendors, live performers, and 15-passenger "pedal pub" party bikes playing amplified music were permitted throughout the festival area.
In December 2025, First Liberty sent a demand letter to Tucson on Hoffman's behalf, warning the city that its policy was unconstitutional, but the group said it received no response. First Liberty filed a complaint against the city this week, alleging the policy violates Hoffman's First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause and the Arizona Constitution.
The complaint asks for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to allow Hoffman to share the gospel at this year's event, and a declaratory judgment that the policy is unconstitutional.
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"This event is happening on city streets and city sidewalks, and in constitutional law, those areas, along with, say, a public park, offer the most constitutional protection of any location you can be at," Bell said.
He also argued that the city's policy singles out religious viewpoints. "You can talk about the weather. You can talk about the Arizona Cardinals or the U of A Wildcats, but you can't talk about religion," he added.
"Censoring a Christian message during a public Christmas event is malicious, unconstitutional, and absurd," Nate Kellum, senior counsel at First Liberty, said in a statement. "A public street festival is just that – a public space where citizens can visit, walk around, and converse with each other about different ideas. The government cannot ban only religious messages."
The complaint names the city of Tucson and Tucson PD officers Matt Alexander and William Leonard, in their individual capacities, as defendants.
The city of Tucson said it does not comment on pending litigation.
The Tucson PD did not immediately return Fox News Digital's request for comment.
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