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NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities have confirmed that a device hurled by a counterprotester during an anti-Islam rally in New York City on Saturday was indeed an improvised explosive device, as revealed by an initial police analysis. On Sunday, law enforcement officials continued their investigation, also examining a second suspicious device discovered in the same vicinity on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Two individuals were detained in connection with their alleged involvement in the clash that erupted at the “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” rally. This event, organized by far-right activist Jake Lang, took place outside the Manhattan home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Although the rally had limited attendance, it attracted a significantly larger group of counterprotesters. Among them was an individual who reportedly threw a smoking object containing nuts, bolts, screws, and a “hobby fuse” into the crowd, as per police reports.
In a statement shared on social media on Sunday, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch disclosed that the department’s bomb squad had determined the object was neither a hoax device nor a smoke bomb. Instead, it was classified as an “improvised explosive device” with the potential to cause serious harm or even fatalities.
Commissioner Tisch noted that the device extinguished itself just a short distance from police officers. The same individual who launched the first device was handed a second one by another counterprotester, which was then dropped and did not appear to activate, she added.
Charges against the two counterprotesters were still pending. Tisch said police were working with federal prosecutors and the FBI on the case.
“Violence at a protest is never acceptable,” Mamdani said in a statement Sunday. “The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.”
Later Sunday, police said on social media that authorities investigating Saturday’s events had “identified a suspicious device in a vehicle on East End Avenue between 81st Street and 82nd Street.” Several streets were closed and “limited evacuations of buildings” were ordered as the bomb squad assessed and worked to remove the device, the post said.
A person associated with Lang’s protest was also arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, assault and unlawful possession of a noxious matter after allegedly macing counterprotesters, police said.
Lang was previously charged with assaulting an officer with a baseball bat, civil disorder and other crimes before receiving clemency as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for Jan. 6 defendants last year. He recently announced that he is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.
Earlier this year, Lang organized a rally in Minneapolis in support of Trump’s immigration crackdown, drawing an angry crowd of counterprotesters that quickly chased him away.