Federal prosecutors charge man accused of spraying Rep Ilhan Omar at town hall
A federal criminal charge has been filed against the suspect accused of spraying a liquid on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., during a town hall event this week.
Anthony James Kazmierczak, 55, "forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, and interfered with United States Representative Ilhan Omar," says a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and obtained by Fox News. The charge was filed by the Justice Department in Minnesota and assigned to Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster.
Right before the attack, Omar called for the resignation or impeachment of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, following multiple fatal shootings involving federal immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
Kazmierczak, who was previously convicted of two DUIs, was charged at the state level with third-degree assault and was booked into the Hennepin County Jail.
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The criminal complaint featured an image of the syringe that federal prosecutors said was used by Kazmierczak in the incident.
It cited a Minneapolis Police Department officer as saying that a hazmat specialist "field tested the substance from the syringe and determined it was water and apple cider vinegar."
"The substance was sent to a state laboratory for further testing and analysis," the complaint added.
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"An MPD Detective Sergeant reviewed body worn camera footage of MPD's arrest of Kazmierczak. The detective noted that Kazmierczak made a spontaneous utterance to the effect of ‘I squirted vinegar’ at the time he was being arrested," it continued.
The complaint also said that on Wednesday, an FBI special agent interviewed a close associate of Kazmierczak who "stated that several years ago, Kazmierczak was speaking to the person on the phone about Representative Omar and said, ‘Somebody should kill that b----,’ referring to Representative Omar."
Fox News' Jessica Sonkin and Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.