Congresswoman Ilhan Omar sprayed with unknown substance at Minneapolis town hall

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unidentified substance by a man with a syringe on Tuesday as she gave her first in-person town hall of the year in Minneapolis, during which she called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be abolished “for good” and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, Kristi Noem, to resign.

Omar had only been speaking for a few minutes when a man in the audience got up and began to shout while spraying her with the liquid. People at the meeting said the liquid had an acidic smell.

Omar walked toward the man after the alleged assault, but he was then swiftly tackled to the ground by a security guard. People inside the north Minneapolis community center gasped as the scene unfolded.

Some, such as the Minneapolis council member LaTrisha Vetaw, pleaded with Omar to end the town hall early to get examined, due to concerns for her safety because of the unidentified liquid. Omar refused to stop. “Ten minutes, I beg you … please don’t let them have the show,” she told the security team.

After the alleged attacker was subdued, there was applause from the room as he was escorted out. “Here is the reality that people like this ugly man don’t understand, is that we are Minnesota strong,” the congresswoman said.

“I learned at a young age that you don’t give in to threats.”

The man was then arrested and booked into Hennepin county jail for third-degree assault, and forensics were called to the scene, a Minneapolis police spokesperson, Trevor Folke, said. Jail records identified the man as Anthony James Kazmierczak, 55.

According to court records reviewed by the Guardian, Kazmierczak has multiple prior traffic convictions spanning decades, including two convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol in 2009 and 2010. Records also show he has been married and divorced twice and has two children.

A review of his apparent online activity by CNN found that he frequently shared political content on social media. The outlet noted that he posted a political cartoon criticizing Omar’s stance on security spending during the 2021 calls to defund the police. More recently, after the killing of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk, Kazmierczak appeared to change his profile picture to an image of Donald Trump speaking at a Turning Point USA event. He later replaced it with a photo of Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, alongside Trump, according to CNN.

As she left the town hall on Tuesday, Omar told reporters: “I’ve survived war. And I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think they can throw at me, because I’m built that way.”

She later posted on social media that she was OK, adding: “I don’t let bullies win. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me.”

Omar is among a wave of Democratic politicians to react with outrage and horror to Saturday’s shooting of 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti, the second fatal shooting of a US citizen by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

The fatal shootings have resulted in calls from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers for Noem to resign.

The Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, condemned Tuesday’s attack on Omar as “unacceptable”, writing on social media: “We can disagree without putting people at risk.”

Jasmine Crockett, the Democratic representative from Texas, said in a post that she was “disgusted” and “outraged”, writing: “Let’s be clear: nonstop hate and dangerous rhetoric from [Donald] Trump and his allies has fueled this type of violence.” The Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace said she was “deeply disturbed” by the news. “Regardless of how vehemently I disagree with her rhetoric – and I do – no elected official should face physical attacks. This is not who we are,” she wrote in a post on X, alongside a video of the attack.

Omar has long been a political target of the US president, who in recent months has renewed his xenophobic attacks, calling in a post on his Truth Social network for her to be “sent back to Somalia”. She arrived in the US as a refugee aged 12 and became a citizen more than 25 years ago.

Last month, Omar told the Guardian that during the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency she received almost no death threats. “Now they are back up, and so there is a clear correlation between [Trump’s] presidency and the political violence that we see and the political danger that a lot of members of Congress and electeds feel across the country,” she said.

The US Capitol police (USCP) said the alleged assault on Omar was “an unacceptable decision that will be met with swift justice” in a statement. “We are now working with our federal partners to see this man faces the most serious charges possible to deter this kind of violence in our society.”

Later on Tuesday, Trump said in a phone interview with ABC News that he had not seen video of the attack on Omar, but still baselessly blamed the attack on her.

“I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” Trump said.

Of potentially watching footage of the attack, Trump emphasized: “I haven’t seen it. No, no. I hope I don’t have to bother.”

According to the latest data, the USCP investigated 14,938 incidents concerning “statements, behaviors, and communications” directed at members of Congress, their families and their staff in 2025 – the third year in a row that this number has continued to climb.