A total of six people, including two men who police say threw suspicious devices, were arrested at an anti-Muslim demonstration organized by far-right influencer Jake Lang near Gracie Mansion on Saturday.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified the two men who allegedly handled and threw the devices as Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Nikk, 19.
Based on preliminary examination and X-ray imaging, Tisch said, the football-sized devices appeared to be jars wrapped in black tape with nuts, bolts and screws, as well as a fuse. She said it was not yet known whether the devices were improvised explosives or hoax devices.
She said the department’s bomb squad was transporting both devices to an NYPD facility at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx for further testing and analysis. The commissioner also said sweeps of the area are still ongoing.
A Gothamist reporter at the protest saw two young men who’d been sitting on a stoop each light long fuses on small items covered in black tape shortly before 1 p.m. near the corner of 87th Street and East End Avenue, as Lang and approximately 20 companions stood behind the barricade that separated them from a crowd of roughly 125 counterprotesters.
Jake Lang, at left behind the barricade in a green tactical camouflage outfit, gathered about a dozen supporters for his anti-Muslim demonstration near Gracie Mansion. Much larger crowds swarmed around Lang’s group, shouting “no more Nazis” and other slogans in protest.
Ryan Kost / Gothamist
Tisch said Balat threw his device toward Lang’s group, which emitted flames and smoke as it traveled through the air before landing in the crosswalk on 87th Street. She said Balat got a second device from Nikk, which he then dropped on the west side of East End Avenue between East 86th and 87th streets. Police immediately swarmed both men.
Tisch said she’d been in regular communication with Mayor Zohran Mamdani since the incident and did not believe the mayor or first lady were at Gracie Mansion at the time. Mamdani is New York City’s first Muslim mayor.
Lang, a far-right provocateur and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, organized the event, which was called “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City. Stop New York City Public Muslim Prayer.”
He’d arrived in the area around 11:30 a.m., wearing a green camouflage tactical outfit, near the corner of York Avenue and 89th Street —and was almost immediately surrounded by a crowd shouting “no more Nazis” and other protest slogans. NYPD officers circled around Lang and a small group of companions as they walked a goat down the blocks toward 87th Street and East End, with several in the surrounding crowd asking the officers why they were protecting him. Police barricaded off the crowd that followed in stages along the route.
Tisch said four other people were arrested besides Balat and Nikk, including someone who used pepper spray.
Lang frequently smiled and pumped his fists amid scuffles and confrontations between his group and members of the crowd during the walk.
Lang and his group left the area around 2 p.m., though many people from the crowd that confronted him remained.
Several residents living near Gracie Mansion told Gothamist they were confused by the commotion.
“I was watching it up on my balcony, and I was like ‘What is happening here?’” Naomi Eisenberg said.
Police say they arrested two people in connection with suspicious devices amid the counter-protest to Lang’s demonstration. No one was reported hurt, according to the NYPd.
Ryan Kost / Gothamist
Earlier this month, Lang was charged in D.C. Superior Court after allegedly telling a Metropolitan Police commander who’d protected the Capitol that he should be “put down like a dead dog” and that “public execution is the only solution for animals like you,” NPR reported. Prosecutors say those and other statements at a Jan. 6 anniversary event constituted threats against the officer.
Lang also appeared in court in Minnesota this week, charged with felony damage to property after posting a video of himself kicking down letters of anti-ICE sculpture, Minnesota Public Radio reported.
Lang, who is running in a special Republican primary election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio, told Newsweek last year that if elected he would “deputize the Proud Boys and the January 6 Patriots to bounty-hunt illegal immigrants.” AMNY reported that Friday night, Lang sped a U-haul truck up to a Manhattan vigil for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made Islamophobic statements and simulated a sex act with a goat until the NYPD intervened.
This is a developing story and has been updated.
