The devices ignited outside the New York City mayor’s residence on Saturday contained explosive materials and fragmentation that could have killed and maimed numerous people, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. A federal terrorism investigation is underway and terrorism charges are pending.
Two people from Pennsylvania were arrested outside Gracie Mansion, which is the home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, on Saturday afternoon, after two suspicious devices were ignited.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters on Saturday that an anti-Islam protest was organized by people associated with Jake Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter and far-right influencer. A group of counter-protesters, numbering more than 100, also gathered, and two young men from Pennsylvania, angered by the anti-Islam protest, brought the homemade bombs to the gathering, intending to cause harm, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
The NYPD’s Bomb Squad sent the devices to the FBI’s Quantico lab for analysis. One of the devices was determined not to be a “hoax device or a smoke bomb,” but instead it was “an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death,” Tisch said in a statement Sunday.
Law enforcement sources told CBS News that the devices consisted of a sports drink bottle filled or partially filled with explosive material set inside glass jars and surrounded by fragmentation, or nuts and bolts. The fuse was apparently connected to an M80-type firework.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has taken the lead and launched a terrorism investigation. Search warrants were expected to be executed in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, sources told CBS News.
Videos showing the chaos from the protests, verified by the CBS News Confirmed team, show a man apparently yelling “Allahu Akbar” – or “God is Most Great” – just as a protester, identified as 18-year-old Emir Balat, of Pennsylvania, allegedly throws an “ignited device.”
Investigators are looking to determine if at least one of the subjects was inspired by ISIS extremist messaging, sources told CBS News.
Tisch described the device as “a jar wrapped in tape, importantly with nuts, bolts and screws along with a hobby fuse.”
According to Tisch, the first device thrown by Balat extinguished itself after striking a barrier in a crosswalk, a few feet from police officers.
Balat then ran away and allegedly retrieved a second device from 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, lit the device and started running with it before dropping the device, Tisch said.
Balat and Kayumi, also from Pennsylvania, were taken into custody. Police arrested a person who used pepper spray on counter-protesters and three others on disorderly conduct and obstruction charges.
In a statement on Sunday, Mamdani specifically mentioned Lang and said the protest outside Gracie Mansion was “rooted in bigotry and racism” and has no place in New York City.
“It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are,” he said.
He did not name the two men who were arrested for the improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Instead, he said, “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”
Pat Milton and
contributed to this report.
