Counterprotester threw improvised explosive at anti-Islam event in NYC, police sayAssociated PressThe Associated PressNEW YORKA device thrown by a counterprotester during an anti-Islam demonstration in New York City was an improvised explosive. Police say the object contained nuts, bolts and screws, plus a hobby fuse. Police Commissioner Tisch said Sunday that the bomb squad confirmed the device was not a hoax or smoke bomb, but a life-threatening improvised explosive. Two counterprotesters are in custody with charges pending. The confrontation unfolded outside the home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani during a protest organized by the far right activist Jake Lang to “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.” Police also said Sunday that they were looking into a second suspicious device found in the same area of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
NEW YORK (AP) — A device thrown by a counterprotester at an anti-Islam demonstration in New York City on Saturday was confirmed to be an improvised explosive, according to a preliminary police analysis. As the investigation continued on Sunday, police said they were looking into a second suspicious device found in the same area of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Two people were in custody for their alleged role in Saturday’s confrontation, which unfolded during a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” event led by the far right activist Jake Lang outside the Manhattan residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The sparsely attended event drew a far larger group of counterdemonstrators, including one person who tossed a smoking object containing nuts, bolts, screws and a “hobby fuse” into the crowd, police said.
In a social media post Sunday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the department’s bomb squad determined the object wasn’t a hoax device or smoke bomb, but an “improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death.”
The device extinguished itself steps from police officers, Tisch noted. The same person who threw it then received a second device from another counterprotester, which was dropped and did not appear to ignite, the commissioner said.
Charges against the two counterprotesters were still pending. Tisch said police were working with federal prosecutors and the FBI on the case.
“Violence at a protest is never acceptable,” Mamdani said in a statement Sunday. “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”
Later Sunday, police said on social media that authorities investigating Saturday’s events had “identified a suspicious device in a vehicle on East End Avenue between 81st Street and 82nd Street.” Several streets were closed and “limited evacuations of buildings” were ordered as the bomb squad assessed and worked to remove the device, the post said.
A person associated with Lang’s protest was also arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, assault and unlawful possession of a noxious matter after allegedly macing counterprotesters, police said.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. He recently announced that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.
Earlier this year, Lang organized a rally in Minneapolis in support of Trump’s immigration crackdown, drawing an angry crowd of counterprotesters that quickly chased him away.