NewsBeat
Suspicious devices found near NYC Mayor Mamdani’s residence
Two suspicious devices were found Saturday outside the official residence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The devices were found by New York City police officers during a scheduled anti-Islam demonstration near Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Officers were alerted around midday to the devices and took two unnamed “persons of interest” into custody, the New York Police Department told The Independent.
“No injuries or property damage have been reported at this time,” a department spokesperson said.
“The ‘Crusade Against Islamification’ gathering held outside Gracie Mansion today by Jake Lang, a vile white supremacist, was despicable and Islamophobic,” mayoral press secretary Joe Calvello told The Independent in a statement. “Thankfully, the Mayor and the First Lady are both safe, though the events are a stark reminder of the threats they both face regularly.”
Mamdani, a Democrat, is the first Muslim to be elected mayor of New York, and he faced waves of Islamophobic rhetoric on the campaign trail.
“The Mayor has spoken with Police Commissioner Tisch, and the NYPD is actively investigating the protest, counter-protest, and suspicious devices discovered outside Gracie Mansion,” he added.
Photos from the scene appeared to show one of the devices, a round object wrapped in metallic tape. Smoke was emitting from one device, and the NYPD bomb squad is investigating, WABC reported.
At the demonstration, held on East End Avenue, just outside Gracie Mansion, far-right supporters clashed with a contingent of counter-protesters on Saturday afternoon.
The latter group, numbering about 125 people, was present for an event they called “Run the Nazis Out of New York City/Stand Against Hate.”
In a statement on X, Lang claimed two men threw bombs at him in an “assassination attempt.” He shared footage of himself and his supporters running when one of the devices landed nearby.
“I am so grateful to be alive,” he wrote in another post.
He shared a photo appearing to show the second of the two devices, this one wrapped in black tape with nail-like objects sticking out its sides.
Elsewhere during the demonstration, a far-right protester reportedly pepper-sprayed members of the opposing group. “Four people got hit, at least,” an eyewitness told amNewYork.
At one point in the chaos, Lang walked a goat through the crowd. At a Friday night vigil in New York City for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran killed in U.S. strikes on February 28, Lang appeared with the animal in tow and manhandled it during a derogatory rant about Muslims.
At the Gracie Mansion event, police sought to keep the opposing crowds of demonstrators separate, and they reportedly later helped clear a path for Lang to exit the area.
At least six people were arrested at the demonstration overall, including one person for disorderly conduct and another for using pepper spray, police sources told ABC News.
Earlier this month, Lang, a January 6 rioter, was charged with making threatening statements about a police officer who was present at a fifth-anniversary event commemorating the attack on the Capitol. He was also arrested last month for vandalizing an ice sculpture at the Minnesota State Capitol protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
In January, Lang was in Minneapolis, where he led a “crusader march” demonizing Muslims and threatened to burn a Quran, as right-wing elements descended on the city claiming the area’s sizable Somali population was tied to government fraud.
When Lang appeared for the January 17 demonstration, which took place between Minneapolis City Hall and the local federal courthouse, he praised the Trump administration’s federal immigration operations and was vastly overwhelmed by counter-protesters who chased him and targeted him with water balloons in sub-freezing temperatures.
Lang’s appearance in the city came as Minneapolis was already on edge, after an immigration agent fatally shot protester Renee Good earlier that month and federal agents were conducting military-style immigration operations across the region.
President Trump pardoned Lang, who was charged with beating police officers with a baseball bat on January 6, along with most others who faced prosecution for their role in the attack.