Chicago – March 08, 2026
An improvised explosive device was hurled during a protest outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s official residence, prompting a terrorism investigation and multiple arrests, police said on Sunday.
The incident occurred Saturday near Gracie Mansion, where a far-right, anti-Muslim demonstration led by activist Jake Lang drew a counterprotest of more than 100 people, according to the NYPD.
Police said a counterprotester lit and threw a jar wrapped in black tape and packed with nuts, bolts and screws, fitted with a hobby fuse, toward barriers separating demonstrators and officers. A preliminary bomb-squad analysis determined the device was a genuine improvised explosive capable of causing serious injury or death, not a hoax or smoke bomb.
At least two men alleged to have handled the devices were taken into custody, among six arrests linked to the clashes, as the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force joined the probe. Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, condemned both the protest’s anti-Islam message and the ensuing violence, saying that using an explosive device at a demonstration is “criminal” and “abhorrent.”
