The FBI has taken over an investigation into an attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), in which a man used a syringe to spray an unknown liquid at her during a Tuesday town hall meeting in Minneapolis, police said Wednesday.
The incident at the meeting occurred while Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, was speaking out against the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents last week amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown on Minnesota. Omar called for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, who oversees that federal agency, to resign or face impeachment.
After Omar said that, a man in the front row rose from his seat, stumbled toward the congresswoman and shouted something unintelligible while aiming a syringe at her, according to a live stream of the event.
The live stream showed the man being tackled to the ground Tuesday evening and taken away by security. The suspect, later identified as 55-year-old Anthony Kazmierczak, was immediately arrested and booked into Hennepin County Jail on suspicion of third-degree assault, police said.
Photos from the scene show the syringe contained a brown liquid. Omar appeared unharmed and continued speaking afterward.
“We are Minnesota strong. We will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us,” she said after returning to the lectern.
The Minneapolis Police Department confirmed Wednesday that the FBI had taken over the investigation but did not answer further questions. Representatives for the Justice Department and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It is routine for the FBI to investigate incidents involving members of Congress.
In a social media post after the attack, Omar said she was all right and thanked her constituents for rallying behind her.
“I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work,” she wrote on X.
Trump has, in recent months, used racist and dehumanizing rhetoric to attack Somali immigrants, often singling out Omar, the first Somali American and one of the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress. Earlier Tuesday, Trump had again publicly assailed Omar at an event in Iowa.
“She comes from a country that’s a disaster. Probably it’s considered, I think, the worst — it’s not even a country, okay? It barely has a government,” he said then, referring to Somalia.
In a phone interview late Tuesday, Trump minimized reports of the town hall incident and called Omar a “fraud,” echoing his frequent barbs against the congresswoman. Trump told ABC News that Omar “probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” without providing evidence to substantiate the claim.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said Trump’s assertion that Omar had staged her attack was “disgusting” and said he was thankful Omar was okay.
“The president’s lies and misinformation continue to fan the flames of these type of violent incidents,” he said. “And it’s at a moment like this, where we actually need leadership from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and it is something that we never get from this president. Ilhan Omar, of course, is a strong, courageous, hardworking public servant. This should have never happened.”
Other Democrats criticized Trump and White House officials for their frequent attacks on Omar. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the attack on Omar “unacceptable.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the “cruel, inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric by our nation’s leaders needs to stop immediately.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) said it “was not a coincidence” that Omar was assaulted after she had faced “slanderous public attacks” from Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Some Republicans also condemned the attack. Rep. Nancy Mace (South Carolina) said she was “deeply disturbed” by the attack on Omar. Sen. Josh Hawley (Missouri) told CNN that such attacks need to stop.
“You can disagree with somebody. … You want to go protest, have at it. But you don’t assault people,” he said.
Trump has recently ramped up his attacks against Somali immigrants in part because of reports of extensive fraud in Minnesota’s social services system, in which dozens of individuals of Somali descent are accused of stealing hundreds of millions in government funds over the past five years. Omar has not been implicated in the scandal.
Trump ended a Cabinet meeting last month with a rant against Somali migrants, calling them “garbage” and saying he did not want them in the United States. Weeks before, he had threatened to end temporary protected status for Somali immigrants in Minnesota and, without evidence, accused “Somali gangs” of terrorizing people there.
Last week, Trump insulted Somali migrants in his remarks at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Can you believe that? Somalia — they turned out to be higher-IQ than we thought,” Trump told the audience of political and corporate leaders from around the globe. “I always say these are low-IQ people. How do they go into Minnesota and steal all that money?”
Trump has also said Omar, who fled civil war in Somalia and later immigrated to the United States, complains about her adopted country too much.
The town hall incident came the same day that the U.S. Capitol Police said threats against lawmakers were on the rise. In a report Tuesday, the agency said its threat assessment section investigated about 15,000 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications directed against Members of Congress, their families, staff, and the Capitol Complex” last year, up from about 9,500 in 2024. The police said that curbing calls for physical harm in political discourse would help reduce the number of threats.
Jennifer Hassan, Matt Viser, Jeremy Roebuck, Perry Stein, Kadia Goba and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
The post FBI takes over investigation into town hall attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared first on Washington Post.
