The man who allegedly charged at Ilhan Omar during a town hall event and sprayed her with a foul-smelling liquid is a Trump fan who detests the Minnesota congresswoman much like the president.
Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, was arrested Tuesday after Omar was lunged at as she called for the abolishment of ICE, joining a chorus of other leaders demanding drastic action after two fatal shootings by federal immigration agents. The attacker managed to squirt Omar with a syringe full of an orange liquid before he was tackled to the ground.
The New York Post has now spoken to a neighbor of Kazmierczak, who said he often shares pro-Trump imagery on Facebook. Brian Kelley also said that Kazmierczak is a “pretty conservative guy” who “doesn’t like Omar.”
Kelly recounted Kazmierczak‘s behavior in the days leading up to the confrontation in Minneapolis on Tuesday night. He said that Kazmierczak had asked Kelly to mind his dog, and suggested he might get in trouble.
“He said, ‘I’m going to this Omar thing.’ I’m like, Omar what? He said, ‘This town hall thing.’ And he said, ‘I might get arrested,’” Kelley told The Post.
“I figured it was nonsense. He wasn’t going to do anything stupid. I said, ‘Sure, I’ll walk her.’ But then the next day he said, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it covered.’ I figured he blew that off.”
Kazmierczak, who Kelley said was “heavily medicated” because of a car accident that affected his spine years ago, was booked into Hennepin County Jail for third degree assault, according to law enforcement.
“He’s also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s,” the neighbor said.
On his MAGA-coded Facebook activity, Kelley revealed: “He doesn’t say much about stuff, but he’ll send articles and posts about different things.”
“I didn’t take him seriously. I’m surprised, but not overly surprised,” he added. “I figured when he said he was going to go to the town hall, he’d stand up and say something stupid. I can’t imagine him assaulting or spraying somebody.”
After the attack, President Trump showed little empathy. Calling on the unique vitriol reserved for his biggest enemies, he suggested that the incident was a plot concocted by Omar herself.
Asked by an ABC reporter whether he had seen the footage, he said: “No. I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”
After the reporter asked a second time whether he had seen the footage, the president replied, “I haven’t seen it. No, no. I hope I don’t have to bother.”
Trump often attacks Omar in his public statements and social media posts, and had insulted just hours before the attack, during his speech in Iowa on Tuesday afternoon.
Trump appears to have taken issue with the fact that Omar is originally from Somalia, something he often fixates on during his missives against the Democrat.
“She comes from a country that’s a disaster,” Trump said on Tuesday. “It’s probably… it’s not even a country,” he continued. “It barely has a government. They’re good at one thing: pirates.”
Omar, meanwhile, defiantly continued her speech after the skirmish. She also offered an update afterwards, speaking to a CNN reporter who was at the town hall event.
“You know, I‘m going to go figure if I am [OK], but I feel OK. I feel that it is important for people, whether they are in elected office or not, not to allow these people to intimidate us, to make us not fight for our constituents and for the country we love,” Omar said.
She also assured her constituents that she was healthy and calm in a social media post, writing on X, “I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong.”
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