“Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke as it traveled through the air before it struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers.”
Two protests stepped off in New York City on Saturday outside Gracie Mansion, the home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife Rama Duwaji, resulting in six arrested from the NYPD. Speaking to reporters, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that counter protesters were responsible for two incendiary devices. Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” could also be heard.
Tisch detailed that at about 11 am, two separate demonstrations got underway at East End Avenue and 87th Street. The first group, led by “far right provocateur” Jake Lang, was comprised of about 20 people. They were protesting against what they call the “Islamic takeover of New York City,” calling to “stop New York City Muslim public prayer.” Lang brought a fully cooked pig along to the protest.
A group called Stand Against Hate staged a counter protest with about 125 people, calling to “run the Nazis out of New York City.” An agitator with Lang’s group pepper sprayed a counter protester around 12:15 and was arrested. About 20 minutes later, a counter protester, 18-year-old Emir Balat, “lit and threw and ignited device toward the protest area,” Tisch said.
“Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke as it traveled through the air before it struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers,” she said. Balat then retrieved a second device from 19-year-old Ibrahim Nikk, whom Tisch said was “tentatively identified,” and rushed back to the scene.
Balat dropped it and was arrested, as was Nikk, as NYPD officers secure the scene and brought in the Bomb Squad. Upon examination, Tisch said, those devices, “which were a bit smaller than a football, appear to be a jar wrapped in black tape, importantly, with nuts, bolts and screws along with a hobby fuse that could be lit.”
“We do not yet know whether the devices were a functional improvised explosive devices or hoax devices, because we don’t yet know if there was energetic material contained in them,” Tisch said. “Both recovered devices are being transported by the bomb squad in a total containment vessel to Rodman’s neck for further testing and analysis.”
There were no injuries reported and neither device exploded. The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force is also investigating. The two devices will be examined and then detonated at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx. The information provided by Tisch was preliminary.