Minneapolis politician attacked as White House changes tune on shooting

Washington: A Minnesota politician who has been intensely targeted by President Donald Trump was sprayed with a mystery substance from a syringe during a public event in Minneapolis as she called for the abolition of immigration police.

A man was arrested after he rushed at congresswoman Ilhan Omar and sprayed her with an unknown, brown-coloured liquid that a witness described as odorous. “Oh my god, he sprayed something on her,” a woman in the audience said. “It smells terrible.”

Omar refused entreaties to seek urgent medical attention and returned to the microphone as her assailant was detained. “We will continue,” she said. “These f---ing assholes are not going to get away with it.”

Police confirmed the man was booked into a local jail for third-degree assault, and forensic scientists attended the scene. After the event ended, Omar headed to seek medical aid and told reporters: “I feel OK.”

A vocal critic of ICE and the Trump administration, Omar was calling for ICE to be abolished and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be impeached when the man rose from his seat near the podium, rushed toward her and attacked.

Omar has been relentlessly targeted by Trump over her views and Somali background, as well as allegations of corruption and a debunked claim that she married her brother.

“Ilhan Omar is garbage, she’s garbage,” Trump said last month. “Her friends are garbage … they complain and do nothing but bitch. We don’t want ’em in our country. Let ’em go back to where they came from and fix it.”

The incident on Tuesday evening in Minneapolis came as Trump’s hardline homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, softened his position on the killing of American citizen Alex Pretti on the weekend, and conceded Border Patrol teams in Minneapolis may have broken protocol - though he did not criticise the actions of the agents involved in the shooting.

Miller said initial statements made by the Department of Homeland Security on the Pretti shooting were based on reports from Customs and Border Protection personnel on the ground.

“Additionally, the White House provided clear guidance to DHS that the extra personnel that had been sent to Minnesota for force protection should be used for conducting fugitive operations to create a physical barrier between the arrest teams and the disruptors,” he said. “We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have been following that protocol.”

Miller, who is also White House deputy chief-of-staff, authored some of the strongest rhetoric against Pretti in the aftermath of his death, calling him “a would-be assassin” who “tried to murder federal law enforcement”.

Pretti was carrying a gun, which is legal in Minnesota, and there is no evidence he was trying to use his weapon. Footage of his death appears to show him being disarmed in the seconds before he was shot and killed.

Miller’s about-face, which was first reported by CNN, came after the White House declined to defend his rhetoric and Trump partially backed down by calling Minnesota’s Democratic leaders, withdrawing a small number of ICE agents from the state, and sending his border tsar Tom Homan to replace Border Force commander Greg Bovino.

During a trip to Iowa on Tuesday, US time, Trump said it was his intention to “de-escalate” the situation in Minneapolis, where two Americans have been killed by federal agents this month, and protests against ICE continue to rage.

Trump also riled the gun lobby by again declaring that Pretti should not have been carrying a firearm when he was observing and confronting Border Patrol agents.

“You can’t have guns, you can’t walk in with guns,” Trump said. “You can’t do that. It’s a very unfortunate incident.”

Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, said Trump was “simply wrong”.

“While we agree you can’t interfere with law enforcement, you absolutely have the right to carry the tools for self-defence while lawfully protesting. In fact, that’s precisely the kind of place where exercising that right matters most,” he said.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t just a misstatement by the president; it reflects a broader problem with the messaging of other highly ranked administration officials.”

The National Rifle Association also took issue with Trump’s remarks. “The NRA unequivocally believes that all law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms anywhere they have a legal right to be,” it said.

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