![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772933167_540_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nNEW YORK \u2014 A counterprotester demonstrating against a \u201cStop the Islamic Takeover of New York City\u201d event Saturday lit and threw a device containing nuts, bolts and screws at the protesting crowd after someone from that group used pepper spray on the counterprotest, police said. <\/p>\n
Police are investigating the incident that started late Saturday morning when someone from the anti-Islam protest associated with conservative influencer Jake Lang shot pepper spray into a counterprotesting group near the mayoral residence Gracie Mansion, Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. <\/p>\n
Tensions continued to heighten, she said, when someone in the counterprotest lit and threw a device she described as smaller than a football into the protesting crowd of about 20 people. <\/p>\n
The device struck a barrier and extinguished itself \u201ca few feet from police officers,\u201d she said. The same person then ran, and another person gave a him a second device, which he then dropped. The devices, which Tisch said were smaller than a football, were wrapped in black tape with nuts, bolts, and screws, as well as a hobby fuse that could be lit. She said it was unclear if they were functioning devices or a hoax. <\/p>\n
All three people have been arrested, and an investigation is underway, Tisch said. <\/p>\n
Tisch didn\u2019t report any injuries during a news conference and said she believed Mayor Zohran Mamdani was not in the residence at the time. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. Lang recently announced that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In this July 28, 2014 file photo, a wrought iron gate secures the entrance to Gracie Mansion, on the Upper East Side in New York on Monday, July 28, 2014. Credit: AP\/Richard Drew<\/p>\n
Lang has also protested in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. <\/p>\n
Tisch said about 20 people showed up to the protest tied to him on Saturday, and the counterprotest had about 125 people at its peak. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 A counterprotester demonstrating against a \u201cStop the Islamic Takeover of New York City\u201d event Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3046,9,11,10,7675,10473,3047],"class_list":{"0":"post-156534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-ap-a-wire","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-religion","13":"tag-top-ap-news","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}