The man accused of attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar during a Tuesday evening town hall meeting in Minnesota is a “piece of s**t” with lifelong anger issues who has been fixated on the Somali-born lawmaker – and the Somali diaspora in general – for years, his younger brother told The Independent.
“I’m not surprised this happened,” Anthony James Kazmierczak’s brother said Wednesday morning in a phone interview from his home in North Carolina. “Not at all. Unfortunately, he and my mother are both right-wing extremists.”
Kazmierczak, a 55-year-old Minneapolis resident, is “just a different person than I am,” according to the brother, who said he has been estranged from his sibling for the past four years. The Independent agreed not to name the brother, who said he has begun receiving death threats.
“I believe in helping people,” Kazmierczak’s brother, 52, went on. “He believes in blaming people.”
When asked if Kazmierczak had mentioned Omar before, the brother responded, “Oh, yeah,” and said he is thankful the Somali-born Democratic legislator, who fled her war-torn nation as a child and became a U.S. citizen in 2000, wasn’t badly hurt.
“He has had a hatred of the Somali community for probably 20 years,” Kazmierczak’s brother continued. “There’s a reason I don’t talk to him… He’s got a lot of anger, I have no idea where it comes from. He’s always been that way. In and out of treatment since he was a kid.”
During Omar’s address to a group of constituents last night at the Urban League Twin Cities, Kazmierczak suddenly stood up and rushed the progressive congresswoman as she called for abolishing ICE, the country’s deportation agency. Bystander video of the bizarre incident shows Kazmierczak spraying an unidentified foul-smelling substance at Omar from a syringe in his right hand.
A security guard tackled Kazmierczak, who was subsequently arrested by police and charged with third-degree assault. Omar, the first Somali-American to serve in Congress, asked for a napkin to wipe herself off but declined further medical attention and continued speaking to the crowd of roughly 100 attendees.
“We’re gonna keep talking,” she said. “Just give me 10 minutes. Please don’t let them have the show.”
ICE has been under fire for violent tactics that left two American citizens dead amid an ongoing deportation push in Minneapolis that has roiled locals and prompted nationwide protests.
The frightening episode spurred outrage by politicians on both sides of the aisle, including GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, who said in a post on X that she was “deeply disturbed” to learn about the attack on Omar.
“Regardless of how vehemently I disagree with her rhetoric – and I do – no elected official should face physical attacks,” Mace wrote. “This is not who we are.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, called for an immediate end to the “cruel, inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric” by politicians on the right.
Nevertheless, when asked if he had seen video of Omar’s assault, President Trump told ABC News, “No. I don’t think about her. I think she’s a fraud. I really don’t think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”
Omar was assaulted the day after federal charges were unsealed against a legally blind “outlaw biker” in Kansas who allegedly posted death threats to Omar on social media.
According to data released this week by the U.S. Capitol Police, which is responsible for protecting members of Congress, threats to elected officials rose for the third year in a row, with the police’s Threat Assessment Section investigating 14,938 threats in 2025, compared to 9,474 in 2024 and 8,008 in 2023.
Omar is regularly denigrated publicly by Trump, who claims to object to her left-leaning ideas, tarring the 43-year-old pol as a “socialist,” calling her “disgusting,” and demanding, variously, she be impeached, imprisoned, or deported.
Trump has also made wild claims recently about Omar being worth tens of millions of dollars, suggesting, without evidence, that she came about the funds unethically.
Yet, during the Biden administration, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into Omar’s finances but dropped the case due to a lack of evidence, according to The New York Times.
Kazmierczak is a staunch Trump supporter, a review of his online activity shows. He was convicted of felony auto theft in 1989, has numerous arrests for DUI, and has twice filed for bankruptcy, according to public records.
A neighbor told the New York Post that Kazmierczak has been “heavily medicated” since a car wreck damaged his spine, and has since been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, calling him a “pretty conservative guy.”
The health issues have left Kazmierczak “not very physically able to do much,” the neighbor said.
Still, Kazmierczak regularly “complains about socialism,” according to his brother, who said his sibling has nevertheless himself “cheated the system” to receive his own entitlements.
“He’s crazy,” Kazmierczak’s brother told The Independent. “He needs help, period… In my mind, he’s a piece of s**t.”
