Pardoned Jan 6 rioter chased from pro-ICE rally in Minneapolis after blasting ‘Ice, Ice Baby’ and threats to burn Quran
A pardoned January 6 rioter led a rally in support of federal immigration officers in Minneapolis but was vastly overwhelmed by counter protesters demonstrating against Donald Trump’s administration and a surge of law enforcement agents in the city.
Jake Lang, who was among the roughly 1,600 rioters granted clemency by the president on his first day in office, was chased from the city’s federal courthouse and targeted with water balloons amid sub-freezing temperatures Saturday.
Earlier in the day, Lang’s group played the song “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice and railed against immigrants, who they claimed were “replacing” white people as counter protesters shouted them down, according to The Washington Post.
Lang, who promised to burn a Quran during the demonstration, branded the rally a “CRUSADER MARCH” on “Little Somalia,” referencing the state’s large Somali population that the administration has accused of widespread fraud as the president expands his mass deportation campaign.
The event drew sharp opposition from critics, who derided his march as racist and Islamophobic.
Ahead of Saturday’s rally, Lang said he planned a burn a Quran on the steps of City Hall. “America is a CHRISTIAN COUNTRY; we will not allow Somali Daycare Pirates to overtake Minneapolis,” he wrote on social media.
A group called the People’s Action Coalition Against Trump said on Instagram that it would demonstrate against Lang’s “hateful anti-Islam rally,” and dozens of counter protesters arrived on the scene.
“Hey, Minnesota what do we say?” one demonstrator chanted into a megaphone. “F*** Nazis every day.”
They also tossed water balloons at the pardoned rioter and hurled snowballs at other anti-immigration protesters as they chased them from the scene.
Video footage posted by Lang shows throngs of counterprotestors, some of whom held anti-ICE signs, surrounding him, pulling at his clothes and attempting to remove him from outside the courthouse.
Lang later claimed on X that he was “stabbed by a crazie white commie leftist rioter.” Video footage shows him walking away from the area with what appeared to be blood on his neck.
The dueling demonstrations unfolded after hundreds of federal immigration agents flooded into Minneapolis in recent days, following a pair of shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. On January 7, an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, sparking political outage and protests across the country.
On Thursday, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act — an emergency power not used for more than three decades — to deploy active-duty troops against citizens protesting his administration. But the president appeared to walk back his comments one day later.
State and local officials have sought to expel federal immigration officers from the North Star State. After Good’s killing, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey delivered a blunt message to ICE to “get the f*** out.” And last week, Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration over its “unprecedented” surge, alleging it violates the Constitution.
