{"id":198419,"date":"2026-01-28T15:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/man-arrested-after-spraying-ilhan-omar-with-substance-at-minneapolis-town-hall-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:43:11","slug":"man-arrested-after-spraying-ilhan-omar-with-substance-at-minneapolis-town-hall-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/man-arrested-after-spraying-ilhan-omar-with-substance-at-minneapolis-town-hall-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested after spraying Ilhan Omar with substance at Minneapolis town hall – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat born in Somalia and rhetorical target<\/a> for President Donald Trump<\/a>, was sprayed with an unknown substance by a man at a town hall event in Minneapolis late on Jan. 27.\u00a0
The man rushed the U.S. congresswoman and sprayed her as she called for ICE to be abolished and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem<\/a> to be impeached<\/a>. The man spoke to Omar as he doused her torso with the material; it\u2019s unclear what he said or what he sprayed.
Omar paused the event briefly as bystanders immediately tackled the man, who was arrested by police. Afterwards she put out a statement saying she will not be intimidated by “this small agitator<\/a>.”
“I\u2019m ok. I\u2019m a survivor so this small agitator isn\u2019t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don\u2019t let bullies win.” said the representative of Minnesota\u2019s 5th Congressional District. “Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.”
According to a Minneapolis Police Department spokesperson, the man used a “syringe to spray an unknown liquid” onto Omar.\u00a0
The U.S. representative was not hurt, according to police department spokesperson Trevor Folke.
Police brought the man, identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, to the Hennepin County Jail on assault charges \u2013 according to Folke.
City forensic scientists responded to the incident to process the scene, according to police.\u00a0
The man rushed Omar and sprayed her with an unknown substance as she spoke at a town hall in Minneapolis about the federal government\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement in the region. He doused her torso and said something before he was tackled.
Omar vowed to continue the meeting as people begged her to stop to get help.
“Please don’t let them have the show,\u201d said Omar, asking for a napkin. “We will continue\u2026 They are not going to get away with this.”
People close to the House member called for her to end the session.
“Whatever it is smells so bad, she needs to go get checked,” one woman said. “It\u2019s about your safety, you need to go get checked. It smells terrible.”
Omar continued calling for Noem to be held accountable as security led the man out of the room.
The attack on the prominent Democrat comes at a point of heightened political violence across the nation and amid tensions in the Twin Cities, where federal agents have killed two U.S. citizens in January: Alex Pretti<\/a>, 37, on Jan. 24 and Renee Nicole Good<\/a>, 37, on Jan. 7.\u00a0
At the time, Omar was speaking about how Democrats need to take action in the face of the Trump<\/a> administration’s immigration enforcement tactics on the state.\u00a0
Trump and top White House officials have said they are targeting the state over fraud<\/a> in Minnesota welfare programs that they say is linked to Somali immigrants<\/a>.
The president\u2019s focus on the Democratic-led state has prompted intense backlash for the White House, especially over the killing of Pretti and the administration\u2019s characterization of the intensive care unit nurse as a “domestic terrorist.”\u00a0
Pretti did not brandish a weapon, as seen in bystander video and according to witness statements; he is apparently shot and killed after intervening to help a woman shoved by a Border Protection officer.\u00a0
“It is important for me to continue to lead my Democratic colleagues in demanding her resignation,” Omar said about Noem. “If she does not resign, we\u2019re going to introduce articles of impeachment.”
Fellow state officials quickly shared statements in support of the Minnesota lawmaker.
“I\u2019m glad that Congresswoman Omar is safe,” Gov. Tim Walz<\/a> said in a statement<\/a>. Our state has been shattered by political violence in the last year. The cruel, inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric by our nation\u2019s leaders needs to stop immediately.”
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, cited Omar’s decision to continue the town hall in the face of the incident as “what service and patriotism looks like.”
“I\u2019m relieved Ilhan is okay and the guy who did this is in police custody,” Smith said in a statement to USA TODAY. “What I think is so important for people to notice, however, is how Ilhan stood up and basically said ‘No, I’m not done yet. I’m not going to let this guy scare me away from doing this town hall.’ Somebody who lives with threats to herself and her family every single day showing us what courage looks like. That’s what service and patriotism looks like.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack in a statement with Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter, saying the attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”
“When a sitting member of Congress is relentlessly demonized through false anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric, violence becomes a predictable outcome,\u201d Hussein said.
Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, added that “an attack on Rep. Omar is an attack on all of us and on the rule of law.”<\/p>\n

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U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat born in Somalia and rhetorical target for President Donald Trump, was sprayed with an unknown substance by a man at a town hall event in Minneapolis late on Jan. 27.\u00a0The man rushed the U.S. congresswoman and sprayed her as she called for ICE to be abolished and Homeland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-198419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}