Homemade bomb thrown at protest near New York City mayor’s house, police say

NEW YORK — At least one counterprotester threw a homemade bomb Saturday during a violent clash with far-right protesters outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, the police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, said Sunday.

Preliminary analysis of the device by the Police Department’s bomb squad found that it was “not a hoax device or a smoke bomb,” but “an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death,” Tisch wrote on social media.

Emir Balat, 18, the counterprotester accused of throwing that device and another smoking projectile, and Ibrahim Nikk, 19, who is accused of supplying one of them, were arrested Saturday, the police said. No explosions or injuries from the devices were reported.

Charges against Balat, of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, and Nikk, of Newton, Pennsylvania, had not been determined as of Sunday, the police said.

Officers also arrested four other people, including Ian McGinnis, 21, of Philadelphia, who pepper-sprayed the counterprotesters. He was charged with reckless endangerment, assault and unlawful possession of noxious matter, the police said Sunday.

The turbulent scene in one of New York City’s swankiest neighborhoods began with a plan by far-right provocateur Jake Lang for a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” demonstration near Gracie, the Upper East Side home of New York’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Lang showed up with a goat and about 20 followers, who were wearing American flag hats and “Freedom” sweatshirts, echoing the slogan on a shirt worn by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. As the day wore on, and the crowd of counterprotesters shouting at Lang grew to more than 100, tensions swelled.

One of Lang’s fellow protesters sprayed Mace at a group of counterprotesters, sending some doubling over in tears. Fistfights broke out among the crowd, and raw eggs flew through the air.

Then a counterprotester threw two smoking objects, one of which landed on East 87th Street in flames, prompting protesters to run for cover.

At least one of the devices was made from a jug that contained a sports drink bottle filled with explosive material, as well as bolts and screws and a “hobby fuse,” according to a senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the matter but was not authorized to discuss a continuing investigation.

The FBI’s New York office later said it recovered two “suspicious objects” from Gracie Mansion during the protest and that its joint counterterrorism division was investigating the matter alongside the police.

Tisch said Sunday that the police were working with the FBI and federal prosecutors and that further analysis would be conducted on both devices.

The mayor and his wife, Rama Duwaji, were not home at the time of the protest, Tisch said. In a social media post Sunday, Mamdani called Lang a “white supremacist” whose protest was “rooted in bigotry and racism,” but he added that “what followed was even more disturbing.”

“The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” the mayor said, thanking the Police Department for its response.

Even after the smoke cleared Saturday, the chaos and shouting continued. Drums were banged. Someone threw a hot dog. Locals strolling to brunch and the gym took cover inside a Gristedes supermarket, many of them uncertain what had prompted the protests.

It was a strained moment filled with tensions both national and hyperlocal. Lang, a pardoned participant in the Jan. 6 riot, recently organized a counterprotest to demonstrations against the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis that descended into violent scuffles. Last week, conservative radio host Sid Rosenberg described Mamdani as a “jihadist” and a “radical Islam cockroach.” And on Friday evening, Lang showed up at a vigil for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s deceased supreme leader, in Washington Square Park, prompting more altercations.

Near the site of Saturday’s protest, some locals were rattled by the unrest. Inside the Gristedes, Kathryn Morlet said she had been trying to have a calm Saturday morning in her yoga class. Corinne Shaw was walking her son to the library so he could start a report on sparrows when they wound up in the swirl of confusion. The streets were packed with joggers, strollers and vexed tourists.

But plenty of passersby — some with a dose of New York City bravado — said that a certain amount of commotion comes with living near the mayor’s residence.

“Antifascist protesting is probably more important than my gym routine,” said Morgan Magid, 29.

On Sunday afternoon, the Police Department blocked off a stretch of East End Avenue several blocks south of Gracie Mansion, where investigators had found a car belonging to one of the protesters arrested Saturday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the investigation, said there were no indications that additional explosive devices were in the car, but that authorities were awaiting the bomb squad to search the vehicle.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.