(Bloomberg) — The device that caught fire and went off during riots outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s residence on Saturday was an improvised explosive device that could have caused “serious injury or death,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
“The NYPD’s bomb squad conducted a preliminary analysis of the device that was ignited and deployed at yesterday’s protest and determined that it was not a fake device or a smoke bomb,” Tisch said in a statement released on X Sunday, adding that two people connected to the device are in police custody. “It is actually an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death.”
Authorities on Saturday arrested six people linked to the wider unrest during an anti-Muslim protest outside a residence, prompting a bomb squad response and a terrorism investigation. Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of the city.
The incident began around 11 a.m. near East End Avenue and East 87th Street, where an anti-Muslim demonstration organized by conservative influencer Jake Lang drew about 20 participants. A nearby counter-protest against Lang’s group drew about 125 people at its peak.
Authorities said the 18-year-old man threw the lit device toward the protest area. Witnesses reported flames and beams before the device hit a barrier and went off meters from police. The man then allegedly retrieved a second device from the 19-year-old, lit it on fire and dropped it on East End Avenue before being taken into custody.
Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi were among those arrested yesterday and remain detained in connection with the devices, Tisch said, without specifying what acts they were accused of. The jars appeared to be wrapped in black tape with nuts, bolts and screws attached and fitted with hobby fuses, police said. Further analysis will be performed, including a second device.
The commissioner told reporters on Saturday that she did not believe Mamdani or First Lady Rama Duwaji were at home at the time. The NYPD is working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI through the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“To attempt to use an explosive device to injure others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and antithetical to who we are,” Mandani said in a statement Sunday, thanking police and remaining in close contact with Tisch about the situation.
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