MINNEAPOLIS — A right-wing provocateur who was among the pardoned Jan. 6 rioters led a brief anti-immigration demonstration on a frigid Saturday in Minneapolis that ended in a crowd of counterprotesters throwing punches at him as he tried to leave.
A crowd of demonstrators had already gathered outside the Diana E. Murphy federal courthouse downtown by the time Jake Lang and a group of about 10 right-wing protesters arrived at noon. The crowd opposing Lang grew to several hundred and stretched along both sides of South Fourth Street between the courthouse and City Hall.
Lang, who was pardoned along with roughly 1,600 others on the first day of President Donald Trump’s second term, announced the Minneapolis protest at a time of heightened tension after the administration dispatched thousands of immigration enforcement agents to the city.
On Saturday, Lang wore a military-style vest with patches that said “Infidel” and “47” — a reference to Trump. Initially, he blasted “Ice Ice Baby” in a show of support for the federal immigration enforcement agency, and used a microphone to shout “Go home, Muslims” and “Send the Somalis back,” as well as incendiary remarks about how immigrants were “replacing” White Americans.
At one point, Lang climbed into a window well of City Hall above a large crowd opposing him. One counterprotester blasted “Let It Go,” a song from the Disney movie “Frozen.” Some threw water balloons and snowballs at Lang, striking him.
The demonstrations took place on a bitterly cold day in Minneapolis and lasted only about an hour before Lang tried to leave. Some counterprotesters yelled out to the crowd to let Lang exit the area, but others shoved and punched him as he pushed his way through the gathering.
Scores of people followed Lang for several blocks, sometimes breaking into a sprint to chase him. Those closest continued to throw punches at Lang, who was later seen bleeding from the back of his head as he ducked into Hotel Indigo several blocks away. He eventually left through a side door and climbed into a vehicle, which drove away.
Police dressed in riot gear with a SWAT vehicle urged protesters to stay out of the street and on the sidewalks early in the demonstration. They did not appear to closely follow the crowd chasing Lang. After Lang ducked into the hotel, police threatened to deploy crowd control munitions several times, though they never did, and protesters left the area.
The Minneapolis Police Department did not return a request for comment.
Thomas Evenstad, a local conservative activist who accompanied Lang on the street Saturday, said he was frustrated that there were “no police to be seen” when Lang was injured.
“He tried to get out,” Evenstad said. “The crowd just swarmed around him.”
Thomas Tier, a counterprotester, brought a speaker and played music near Lang during the demonstration.
“I’m here to stand up for them,” Tier, 40, said of the city’s immigrants. “I’ve seen the whole city rally around that.”
Lang has previously invoked antisemitic tropes, attempted to provoke Muslims by trying to burn the Quran and used other incendiary language in his calls for action.
Saturday’s demonstrations come amid a federal immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, two shootings involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and threats from the White House to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests. Fears of violence have grown after an ICE officer fatally shot Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was in her car while monitoring federal enforcement actions on a residential street in Minneapolis.
On Friday, Trump slightly walked back his threat to invoke the Insurrection Act, telling reporters, “I don’t think I need it right now.” At the same time, however, his administration has further sown divisions between local and federal authorities as it readies to send subpoenas to Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, two of Minnesota’s highest-profile Democrats, as part of an investigation into impeding law enforcement.
State and local agencies said they would monitor the weekend’s demonstrations and continued to urge people to keep their protests peaceful. The Minnesota National Guard said Saturday that it was staging vehicles, equipment and personnel to deploy to city streets if needed.
Lang, who was charged with beating police officers with a baseball bat on Jan. 6, 2021, has relished online his role in provoking outrage and anti-immigrant sentiments.
On X, he claimed that thousands would show up Saturday for a “CRUSADER MARCH” on what he called “Little Somalia.” The protest’s name, March Against Minnesota Fraud, draws on the renewed attention cast on state officials by the president and other right-wing influencers over failing to stop alleged welfare fraud among the Somali immigrant community.
Subarctic conditions prevailed Saturday, possibly tamping down crowd sizes during the demonstrations.
Those who came to support Lang were not an organized group. They said they heard about the protest and joined in because they’re Trump supporters upset about alleged fraud in Minnesota and undocumented immigrants. They blamed counterprotesters for becoming violent.
“They’re the aggressors,” said Mike Anderson, of Forrest Lake, Minnesota, an Army veteran carrying a banner mocking fraudulent day care centers that said “Deport them all” and “Arrest Ilhan Omar and Tim Walz.”
“I’m sick of all the anti-ICE protests,” he said, adding later during confrontations with counterprotesters, “I’m not trying to kick people out as long as they legally go through the process.”
A woman interjected: “They’re stealing people who are showing up for their meetings. They’re doing the right thing and they’re stealing them.”
Gary Percival, 31, of Minneapolis, a heavy equipment operator, helped hold Anderson’s banner outside City Hall. Percival said he joined the protest because he follows Lang online.
“I’m a huge Jake Lang fan,” Percival said, adding that he also supported the ICE operation in Minnesota. “I love it. If I could be out there with them, I would.”
Lang had sat in jail for four years after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as he was awaiting trial. During that time, he tried to organize an armed militant group, refused to adhere to jail rules and left the court “no basis to conclude that he poses anything but a continuing danger to the public,” a federal judge assigned to his case wrote in 2024.
Lang, originally from New York state, has also launched a long-shot bid for the U.S. Senate, running as a Republican in a special election for the seat that Marco Rubio vacated after he became Trump’s secretary of state.
Elizer Darris, executive director of the nonprofit Minnesota Freedom Fund, called the anti-immigrant protest led by Lang a distraction.
“We got much bigger fish to fry here in Minnesota than outside agitators coming to disrupt and distract us,” Darris told The Washington Post on Saturday, emphasizing that the focus should be on protecting community members and ensuring federal agents don’t use excessive or deadly force.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which investigates officer-involved shootings, “reluctantly” withdrew from a joint probe with the FBI, stating that federal authorities had blocked the state agency from key evidence and materials necessary for investigation.
“This is bigger than Minneapolis. This is bigger than St. Paul. This is bigger than Minnesota,” Darris said.
Wang, Hatzipanagos and Tucker reported from Washington. Erin Patrick O’Connor in Minneapolis and Justine McDaniel and Kyle Rempfer in Washington contributed to this report.
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