The Justice Department has charged a man who squirted apple cider vinegar on Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar at an event in Minneapolis, according to court papers made public Thursday.
The man arrested for Tuesday’s attack, Anthony Kazmierczak, faces a charge of forcibly assaulting, opposing, impeding and intimidating Omar, according to a complaint filed in federal court.
Authorities determined that the substance was water and apple cider vinegar, according to an affidavit. After Kazmierczak sprayed Omar with the liquid, he appeared to say, “She’s not resigning. You’re splitting Minnesotans apart,” the affidavit says. Authorities also say that Kazmierczak told a close associate several years ago that “somebody should kill” Omar, court documents say.
Kazmierczak has a criminal history and has made online posts supportive of Donald Trump, a Republican.
Squirting an unidentifiable liquid in someone’s face is terrorism.
Until it’s tested in a lab, no one knows what it is. It could be a strong acid, it could be a nerve agent. Neither of those things are unheard of, and either one can maim or kill in a matter of minutes.
Using fear or violence to achieve a political purpose is the definition of terrorism. The attacker was attempting to disrupt the town hall and intimidate politicians in order to suppress political speech.
It’s literal terrorism.
For real, I cannot imagine the insanely long list of charges if that had been a GOP member, every charge you could possibly pull out of your ass, multiplied by the number of people in the room/close proximity.
Too young to remember a post 9/11 America? People were getting hit with a terrorism/terroristic threat charge for way less than what this guy did.
It was identified as something harmless. Terrorism is the use of deadly violence on soft, civilian targets. Generally, assaults on political leaders are considered something else. Terrorism is the continued threat of future deadly violence, not of squirting vinegar on people.
I don’t think a lab test was required to figure out it was harmless. It was vinegar.
Yeah, but it wasn’t. If someone hit one of those ICE thugs with a black water balloon that was indeed filled with harmless water, would you support charging the thrower with terrorism?
No, it’s using violence to create fear of future violence. That’s the literal definition. Your personal definition waters down “terrorism” to a ludicrous extent.
Not immediately, and if it had contained a nerve agent it would have been too late to do anything about it by the time it was identified.
Terrorism doesn’t exclude attacks on political leaders, especially when they’re in civilian settings such as a town hall.
A brazen attack with a syringe filled with mystery fluid in the middle of a town hall is intended to have a chilling effect on political speech and communication between representatives and their constituents. It’s supposed to send the message “this could happen again, to anyone,” and is intended to stifle political opposition. It’s an intimidation tactic, which when applied to political purposes fits the definition of terrorism.
There’s no way to determine that’s all it was without lab testing.
That wasn’t immediately known at the time
There’s a difference between water balloons and a syringe filled with mystery fluid. Also, if someone were throwing water balloons at ICE, the current administration would definitely call them terrorists. The charges wouldn’t stick, but it’s completely different from mystery fluid-filled syringe.
It’s using violence or fear (i.e., the threat of violence) to achieve a political purpose. Stochastic terrorism doesn’t utilize direct violence, but the threat of violence is often enough to achieve its intended effect.
Just creating “fear of future violence” isn’t it. Extortion, blackmail, racketeering can all create fear of future violence, but they’re not terrorism unless they’re done for political purposes. Terrorism is using fear to achieve a political purpose, whether through violence or threats of violence. That’s not my “personal definition,” it’s what it is. You can look it up.
So the people mailing fake anthrax isn’t terrorism?