Emir Balat running from police c/o U.S. Department of Justice
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An Upper East Side neighborhood still on edge after a chaotic weekend of violent clashes outside the mayor’s residence was shaken again on Tuesday, when a suspicious device found inside Carl Schurz Park forced another evacuation — this time right in the middle of a warm afternoon packed with dog walkers and pickleball players.
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The device, discovered by NYC Parks workers cleaning the park, was ultimately deemed non-threatening by the NYPD bomb squad. But the scare underscored just how on edge the area around Gracie Mansion has been since Saturday, when two Pennsylvania teenagers allegedly tried to detonate homemade bombs filled with a volatile explosive used in some of the deadliest terrorist attacks of the past decade.What happened Saturday
The violence broke out around 12:30 p.m. during an anti-Muslim demonstration organized by Jake Lang, a far-right provocateur and pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionist, near East End Avenue and 87th Street. Lang’s rally — which he billed as a protest against the “Islamification of New York City” — targeted Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, and was staged during Ramadan. Lang and roughly 20 supporters held a pig roast at a nearby cafe and paraded a live goat before marching toward the mansion.
Approximately 125 counter-protesters mobilized in response, and the two sides clashed as NYPD officers tried to keep them separated. A member of Lang’s group, Ian McGinnis, 21, was arrested for allegedly pepper-spraying counter-protesters, including near children, and was charged with reckless endangerment, assault, and unlawful possession of a noxious matter.
Then, at around 12:15 p.m., what initially appeared to be a smoke bomb turned out to be something far more sinister.
The bombs
Federal prosecutors say Emir Balat, 18, of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, pulled out a homemade explosive device — about the size of a mason jar, wrapped in black tape, packed with nuts and bolts, and fitted with a hobby fuse — and threw it toward the crowd of protesters. The device struck a police barricade and extinguished itself just feet from officers.
Balat then ran south down East End Avenue, where Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, of Newtown, Pennsylvania, allegedly handed him a second device. Balat lit it and dropped it between 86th and 87th Streets before being tackled and arrested by police.
Emir Balat (left) and Ibrahim Kayumi c/o U.S. Department of Justice
Neither device detonated. But the NYPD bomb squad’s analysis revealed they were no hoax. One of the devices tested positive for TATP — triacetone triperoxide — a highly volatile homemade explosive known colloquially as the “Mother of Satan” that has been used in major terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing that killed 22 people. The devices were studded with nuts and bolts that could have served as shrapnel.
When the bomb squad later conducted controlled detonations of the two IEDs, the result was what NYPD Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner described as a “significant explosion.” A law enforcement source put it more bluntly to the New York Post: “All we did was get lucky. They didn’t get the right mixture or concentration. This is just luck no one is dead.”
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ISIS inspiration
Both suspects openly declared their allegiance to ISIS after being taken into custody, according to a federal criminal complaint. Body camera footage captured Kayumi responding “ISIS” when someone in the crowd asked why he had done it. Once at the precinct, Kayumi waived his Miranda rights and told police he watched ISIS propaganda on his phone.
Balat also waived his rights and wrote on a piece of paper: “I pledge my allegience [sic] to the Islamic State.” In a police car, he told officers that he hoped to carry out an attack “even bigger” than the Boston Marathon bombing, which he noted resulted in “only three deaths.”
The two were charged Monday in federal court with five counts each, including attempted material support of a foreign terrorist organization (ISIS), use of a weapon of mass destruction, and transportation of explosive materials. They appeared in court in white jail jumpsuits, shackled and silent. A federal judge ordered both held without bail. Their next court date is April 8.
Balat is a senior at Neshaminy High School in Langhorne who switched to a virtual program in September and had not attended in-person classes since. His attorney, Mehdi Essmidi, told reporters his client had “complicated stuff going on” in his personal life and added: “I believe he’s 18 and he doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing.”
Kayumi graduated from Council Rock High School North in 2024. His mother filed a missing person report on Saturday when he didn’t come home. His father told the New York Times the family had no idea what was happening: “If he’s going to be five minutes late, he calls.”
The two drove to New York from Pennsylvania on Saturday, crossing the George Washington Bridge at 11:36 a.m. — less than an hour before the attack. Essmidi said he did not believe the two had known each other long.
The expanding investigation
On Sunday, police found a car registered to a member of Balat’s family parked several blocks from Gracie Mansion. Inside, investigators discovered hobby fuse material, a metal container similar to the bomb casings, and a notebook containing handwritten references to “TATP explosive” along with a list of chemicals including hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid, and acetone. The vehicle was removed on a flatbed truck while nearby buildings were evacuated.
On Monday night, FBI agents raided a public storage facility on South Flowers Mill Road in Langhorne linked to one of the suspects. The search turned up explosive residue, and bomb technicians conducted controlled detonations overnight that produced loud bangs heard by nearby residents. Middletown Township police assured the public there was no danger.
FBI agents also raided the homes of both suspects in Bucks County over the weekend. Surveillance video obtained by news outlets showed Balat allegedly purchasing a 20-foot roll of safety fuse at a Phantom Fireworks store in Penndel, Pennsylvania on March 2 — five days before the attack. The fuse cost $6.89.
Tuesday’s scare
With the neighborhood still under a heightened state of alert, parkgoers in Carl Schurz Park — located just one block from Gracie Mansion — were ordered to leave shortly after noon on Tuesday when parks workers found a suspicious device along the East River promenade. Police closed East End Avenue between 85th and 87th Streets and East 86th Street between York Avenue and East End Avenue. Helicopters circled overhead and yellow tape went up near the dog park.
The bomb squad cleared the device and deemed it non-threatening. Gracie Mansion was not evacuated. The mayor was not home at the time.
“We had the thing yesterday, again, the whole street was closed off,” one area resident told CBS News. “And now this again.”
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Official response
Mayor Mamdani — who confirmed Monday that he and his wife Rama Duwaji were actually at a museum in Brooklyn when Saturday’s devices were thrown, not at Gracie Mansion as initially reported — condemned both the rally and the attack in a statement Sunday.
“Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism,” Mamdani said. “Such hate has no place in New York City.”
He called the explosive devices “not only criminal” but “reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” while affirming the right to peaceful protest: “While I found this protest appalling, I will not waver in my belief that it should be allowed to happen. Ours is a free society, where the right to peaceful protest is sacred.”
Commissioner Tisch said Monday there were no indications the attack was connected to the ongoing war in Iran, but that the city remains on a heightened state of alert.
Six people were arrested in total on Saturday. The investigation is being led by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
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