A man was detained in the US city of New York for hurling what the police described as ‘ignited devices’ near far-right protesters demonstrating at the mayor’s residence on Saturday.
The devices were wrapped in black tape and contained nuts, bolts and screws, police said.
New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the devices were smaller than a football and also had a hobby fuse that could be lit. It was unclear if the devices were functional improvised explosives or a hoax.
What do we know?
The incident occurred as two protests were taking place outside Gracie Mansion at 11am local time (1600 UTC), the official residence of the New York mayor – a ‘Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City’ called by conservative influencer Jake Lang and a much larger counterprotest called ‘Drive the Nazis Out of New York’.
Lang’s protest – which was against alleged ‘Islamification’ and called for an end to ‘public Muslim prayer’ – drew 20 demonstrators while the counterdemonstration had close to 125 people at its peak, police said.
The two groups were separated into designated areas by officers, Tisch said.
But tensions escalated before noon, when a protester from Lang’s group used pepper spray at counter protesters, the commissioner said, adding that the individual was detained.
Shortly after, a counter protester lit and threw an ignited device towards the opposing protest area, she said.
“Witnesses reported seeing flames and smoke as it travelled through the air before it struck a barrier and extinguished itself a few feet from police officers,” Tisch told the media.
The same person then ran, and another man gave him a second device, which he then dropped near Lang’s group of protesters.
Both men have been detained by the police.
Gracie Mansion is home to the city’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Tisch said Mamdani was not in the residence at the time of the incident.
DW
