Sean Feucht Concert Draws Hundreds of Maskless Revelers to See Evangelical Singer

Hundreds of people reportedly attended an evangelical singer's concert in El Cajon in San Diego County without masks despite thousands of new coronavirus cases currently being reported every day in the Southern California region.

Crowds flocked on Sunday to El Cajon park for the free concert by Sean Feucht, a musician who has been leading the controversial "Let us Worship" campaign during the pandemic in defiance of lockdowns and social distancing measures.

Photos from the event show a largely white crowd of concert-goers who are neither wearing masks nor practicing social distancing as California continues to battle with the spread of COVID-19.

Over the past seven days, San Diego County has reported an average of 2,201.1 new cases per day, a 35.4 percent decrease from two weeks ago, according to the LA Times. Over that same period, there have been 38.9 deaths per day. It has seen a total of 227,195 cases and 2,375 deaths since the start of the pandemic while California has hit more than three million cases.

El Cajon's Republican Mayor Bill Wells, who delivered the concert's opening prayer, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he thinks the event gave people hope.

Wells, who has been critical of lockdown measures, said: "I want to emphasize I spoke with Sean (Feucht) who told me contact tracing shows this is not spreading the virus."

Ahead of the event, El Cajon's city manager, Graham Mitchell, also told the newspaper that they were not issuing a permit for the event.

The Union-Tribune reported that a single protester of the event, who gave his name only as "Michael" wore a grim reaper costume, handed out face masks and heckled Feucht using a megaphone.

"How many people have you killed due to no masks at your events, Sean?" the man reportedly asked again and again.

Several people in the crowd reportedly began to follow him, praying around him after he started blaring a siren noise through the megaphone.

A member of the crowd jumped on him from behind, putting him in a headlock and wrenching the megaphone from his hand before running off and smashing it against a concrete bench, according to the Union-Tribune.

El Cajon police officers standing a few yards did not pursue the man despite complaints from the victim, the publication reported. Newsweek has contacted the police department for comment.

After the concert, Feutch shared a video of the event on Twitter with the caption: "THE ROAR FROM SOCAL IS BEING RELEASED! We are not backing down in 2021!! #LetUsWorship."

Feucht is the leading force behind "Let Us Worship," a group that opposes church-related lockdown measures as a violation of religious liberty. He has held similar events in other areas of California, Maine, Oregon, Colorado, Florida and Nashville, Tennessee, the last of which was held without his first acquiring a permit for the event.

Videos of Feucht's past "Let Us Worship" events posted on his personal YouTube account have shown mostly white audience members without face masks and not practicing social distancing measures.

Feucht has called his events "protests" to circumvent municipal coronavirus requirements under the banner of free speech. Republican President Donald Trump has done the same thing in order to hold his large rallies without face masks or social distancing either, according to the Associated Press.

Earlier this year, Feucht ran an unsuccessful campaign to become a Republican House representative for the state of California. His campaign ended when he lost his state's March 3 primary election.