Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked at an event she was hosting on Tuesday, when an audience member used a syringe to spray liquid at her, Minneapolis police said.
Omar was uninjured and continued to speak. “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,” she later wrote on X.
Authorities have not yet identified what the liquid was. According to a BBC journalist in the room, it had a sour smell similar to a chemical product.
Anthony James Kazmierczak, 55, has been charged with third-degree assault and is being held in custody, the local sheriff’s office said.
Omar, a Democrat who became in 2019 the first Somali-American to serve in the US Congress, is a fierce critic of US President Donald Trump.
She has recently targeted the president’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, during which two US citizens have been shot dead.
In the wake of the attack on Omar, the president was asked by ABC News whether he had seen the footage of the incident, and responded that he had not.
“I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud,” Trump told the outlet.
Credit: aljazeera.com
