Man faces federal assault charge in attack against Rep. Ilhan Omar during town hall
The syringe and liquid authorities said Anthony Kazmierczak used, which was taken into evidence by the Minneapolis Police Department. (US District Court. District of Minnesota)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The man who was arrested after charging at Rep. Ilhan Omar during a town hall in Minneapolis has been charged by the Justice Department with assaulting a federal representative, a complaint shows.
Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, has been charged with “forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated and officer and employee of the United States,” according to the federal complaint.
He allegedly had a syringe filled with apple cider vinegar when he charged at Omar while she stood at a podium on Tuesday, according to the affidavit.
“I squirted vinegar,” he allegedly said after being tackled by security, according to the affidavit, which included an image of the syringe.
At the time of the incident, Omar was talking about how Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should resign.
“She’s not resigning. You’re splitting Minnesotans apart,” Kazmierczak allegedly said as he was being led away, according to the affidavit.
He was arrested and initially booked into Hennepin County Jail on suspicion of third-degree assault, Minneapolis police said Tuesday.
A “close associate” of the suspect told the FBI that several years ago, Kazmierczak allegedly said, “Someone should kill that b****,” while talking about Omar during a phone call, according to the affidavit.
After the incident, Omar told reporters that she won’t be intimidated.
“You know, I’ve survived more, and I’m definitely going to survive intimidation and whatever these people think that they can throw at me because I’m built that way,” she said.
Tuesday’s attack came amid tensions in Minneapolis between local officials and the Trump administration over the immigration crackdown in the city that has seen two U.S. citizens killed in shootings involving federal law enforcement.
Journalist Don Lemon arrives with his legal team for an arraignment hearing at the Warren E. Burger Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on February 13, 2026 in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — Former CNN journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal civil rights charges in connection with an incident in which anti-ICE protesters disrupted a service at a Minnesota church.
Lemon appeared in federal court in St. Paul before Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko, following his arrest in Los Angeles last month.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
An ABC News graphic from Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, on the expected winter storm. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — A highly impactful and potentially historic nor’easter is expected to quickly strengthen as it collects itself offshore near Delaware, Maryland and Virginia on Sunday, leading to major and potentially extreme impacts for millions along the I-95 corridor.
More than 50 million Americans were on alert on Sunday morning for winter storm conditions beginning later Sunday and continuing into Monday.
Blizzard warnings are in effect for more than 35 million Americans from Cape Charles, Virginia, to Dover, Delaware, up to the I-95 corridor from Philadelphia to Boston for increased confidence in snowfall of more than a foot and gusty winds that will likely cause blizzard conditions. The entire states of Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island were included.
Winter storm warnings were in effect for parts of central Virginia and Maryland, east-central Pennsylvania, southern New York, northern Connecticut, west-central Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and Vermont, and southern Maine for increased confidence of snowfall.
Some areas are expecting about 6 inches, while some areas may potentially see more than a foot, as well as gusty winds that will likely cause blowing snow and whiteout conditions.
Those conditions could hit major cities, including Baltimore; Harrisburg and Scranton, Pennsylvania; Albany, New York; Hartford, Connecticut; Concord, New Hampshire; and Portland, Maine.
On Sunday afternoon, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a disaster declaration ahead of the evening’s storm, saying it will allow “our state agencies have every resource they need to prepare and keep people safe.”
Shapiro asked people to stay off the roads and stressed that people should take the storm seriously and seriously and stay inside.
Conditions are expected to begin to worsen in the Philadelphia area later today, the governor said.
New York City and Philadelphia were under a blizzard warning for total snowfall reaching between 12 and more than 18 inches, with potential winds gusting up to 55+ mph, causing whiteout conditions and difficult-to-impossible travel conditions later Sunday through Monday.
New York City hasn’t been under a blizzard warning since March 2017, close to a decade ago. The last such warning for Philadelphia was in January 2016, more than a decade ago.
“The snow is back,” New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media early on Sunday. “But New York is ready.”
At a press conference later Sunday afternoon, Mamdani announced a state of emergency for the city and a travel ban beginning at 9 p.m. Sunday and ending at 12 p.m. Monday. New York City schools will also be closed Monday, Mamdani said.
According to the National Weather Service, this is the first time that all of New Jersey has been under a blizzard warning since January 1996.
The entire state of Delaware is under a blizzard warning for the first time since Feb. 10, 2010, more than 15 years ago, according to the National Weather Service.
More than 7,400 flights have been canceled for Sunday and Monday, according to flight tracker FlightAware. Over half of all flights at John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports have already been canceled ahead of the storm.
Airports in Newark, Boston, Philadelphia, D.C. and Baltimore have also seen significant cancellations. Between 88% and 93% of flights scheduled for Monday at New York airports and in Boston have been canceled as of noon Sunday.
Coastal Flood alerts were also up from coastal Delaware, Maryland and Virginia to the Jersey Shore, as well as from Long Island to the coast of southern and eastern New England for minor to moderate coastal flooding during high tide.
Colin Gray, 54, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, 14, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on September 6, 2024, in Winder, Georgia. Colin Gray is being charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder and cruelty to children after his son opened fire and killed 4 at the high school on Wednesday. (Photo by Brynn Anderson-Pool/Getty Images)
(GEORGIA) — In often tearful and painful testimony, students wounded in a 2024 mass shooting at a Georgia high school took the witness stand on Tuesday in the murder trial of the alleged gunman’s father.
As the defendant, 55-year-old Colin Gray, sat just feet away listening, the students recounted the horror they endured on Sept. 4, 2024, at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, allegedly at the hands of Gray’s then 14-year-old son, Colt.
Judge Nicholas Primm, who is presiding over the case, ordered the media not to show the students’ faces during the televised trial. The defense did not cross-examine any of the students who testified.
All of the students who testified Tuesday said they were in algebra teacher Cassandra Ryan’s class when they heard a loud bang outside their classroom door.
“I remember standing up and turning my back towards the door, and that’s when I saw him, Colt. He was pointing the weapon, just aiming anywhere, I guess,” testified Melany Delira-Castaneda, who was a freshman at the time of the shooting.
The now 16-year-old girl testified that she didn’t realize she had been shot until after the gunshots subsided.
“I remember standing up and I turned around. I didn’t know I was shot, but I was. My body was telling me to hold my arm, so I was holding my arm,” Delira-Castaneda testified. “I think I was just in shock and scared.”
She said she was shot in the shoulder.
“I feel like just seeing a lot of what I saw that day, it just sticks with me, and not being able to trust certain people,” Delira-Castaneda told the court.
Prosecutors called the students to testify in an effort to show what Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith described in his opening statement as the “horrific consequences” of the alleged actions or inaction Colin Gray took with his son leading up to the shooting.
Gray is the latest parent that prosecutors in various U.S. states have attempted to hold criminally culpable for their children’s alleged deadly actions.
The father is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Gray’s son, Colt, now 16, has been charged as an adult and is awaiting a separate trial on multiple counts of felony murder and aggravated assault. He has pleaded not guilty.
Killed in the shooting were math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, 39; math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53; and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, officials said.
Angulo was also in Ryan’s class when he was shot and killed.
“This case is about this defendant and his actions – his actions in allowing a child that he has custody over access to a firearm and ammunition after being warned that his child was going to harm others,” Smith said in his opening statement on Monday.
Prosecutors allege that despite repeatedly being warned about his son’s mental deterioration and that he was a danger to himself and others, Colin Gray gave the boy an AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present and allowed him to keep the weapon propped against a wall in his bedroom. The rifle, prosecutors allege, was used in the mass shooting at Apalachee High School.
Nautica Walton, another student in Ryan’s algebra class on the day of the shooting, testified on Tuesday that when she heard a loud bang outside the classroom door, “I realized something was wrong.”
“I remember my teacher falling to the floor, and then Taylor, [a student] in front of me, I remember seeing her fall down before I turned around and saw there was somebody at the door with a weapon,” Nautica, now 16, testified.
She told the court that she got on the ground next to Melany Delira-Castaneda.
“I remember Melany, she had blood all on her arm. I remember her blood was getting on the side of me because I was lying on the side of her,” Walton testified.
Walton further testified that she was shot in the leg during the episode and recalled going in and out of consciousness.
“I remember my teacher telling me to stay awake because I was feeling really tired,” Walton said on the witness stand. “I remember Natalie [another student] lying on the floor, saying she was hit and crying with a big puddle of blood,” said Walton, adding that a classmate took off her jacket and wrapped it around her leg.
“And then I passed out after that,” she testified.
Walton also told the court that since the shooting, she has been unable to play sports and has been “very paranoid.”
“I don’t like being in front of doors at school. I don’t use the bathroom at school,” testified Walton, adding that she had nightmares for months after the shooting.
Student Taylor Jones, now 16, testified that when she realized she had been shot in the leg, she asked a classmate to hold her hand “because I was scared.”
She told the court that she remembers being on the classroom floor before she passed out and then waking up at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where she was flown to by a medical helicopter.
Jones, a one-time volleyball player on her school team, told the court that she has since undergone multiple surgeries and has been unable to play sports.
Natalie Griffith, now 16, recalled to the court looking down at her hand during the shooting and seeing a hole and blood near her wrist.
“I didn’t know this at the time, but I had another one up on my shoulder,” she testified of a second bullet wound. “I was also worried that I was going to die and how that would affect my parents because my dad has a heart problem.”
Griffith told the court that as she was being carried out of the classroom, she saw Colt Gray on the floor being detained with his hands behind his back.
“I said a lot of curse words. I was very angry at the time because I thought they were going to have to amputate my hand,” Griffith testified. “I remember yelling at him that we were kids, because we were kids.”
Jaxxon Beaver, 16, another student in the algebra class, testified that he was also shot in the leg.
“I noticed that when I was hurt, I looked down and saw a hole in my shorts and noticed I was bleeding,” Beaver said on the stand.
Beaver further testified that he was unable to go to school for at least three months after the shooting, and eventually gave up on going back.
“Every time I went back to school, I would feel like something bad was going to happen again. I couldn’t wait and had to go home, like right after,” Beaver testified.
Ronaldo Vega, now 16, recalled to the court seeing Colt Gray at the door wearing yellow gloves and firing a rifle that had a scope.
“He shot, I don’t know how many times. I went down to duck,” Vega testified.
Vega testified that when the shooting stopped, he barricaded the classroom door with desks and chairs. He said he saw Christian Angulo curled up on the floor motionless near the door.
“A girl was screaming that he was dead,” Vega told the court.
