Minneapolis, MN — Nearly a thousand people gathered Saturday morning at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis to take part in various protest actions throughout the day, but it was clear most people were there for a big event.

The previous day, far-right agitator Edward Jacob “Jake” Lang announced he would appear at the facility to give a press conference at noon. What exactly the press conference was going to cover was unclear, but the people of Minneapolis were ready for a second confrontation with the man who received a presidential pardon last year for attacking Capitol police with a baseball bat on Jan. 6, 2021.

Lang had been rampaging across the country since he was released from prison last January, making hateful appearances wherever news was happening. As of November 2025, those appearances took an explicitly Islamophobic form, marching through Dearborn, Michigan, and Plano, Texas, against the Muslim communities in and around those areas. 

At some point during those events, he set his sights on Minneapolis and its significant Somali population. When Nick Shirley stirred the pot with a thoroughly debunked video claiming large-scale fraud at Somali daycares, Lang sought to make the most of the situation and farm the community for content for his social media.

Ahead of schedule on Feb. 7, a U-Haul moving truck appeared heading north on Tower Road, between the tall chain-link fences set up on either side of the street to keep protesters from blocking traffic. There was shouting, and then the sound of Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” as the truck approached the Whipple building’s northeast driveway where a majority of the protesters were standing.

There was Lang in the back, wearing a camouflage plate carrier too small for his torso, leaving his love handles spilling out from either side. His pants were loose-fitting this time, not like the camouflage sausage casings he wore on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol days prior.

Lang was accompanied by at least four other men in the cargo area of the truck–a clear violation of U-Haul’s user policies and Minnesota’s seat belt law–with a dozen bags of ice. One man standing to Lang’s left was masked and dressed in all black, carrying a paintball gun and pepper spray.

Jayden Scott was there too, fresh off his stint in a Michigan jail for failing to appear at a court hearing, carrying a shoddily constructed crucifix made out of lumber.

As protesters approached the back of the U-Haul, the masked man with the paintball gun lurched forward and sprayed people down with his pepperspray. For extra measure, he indiscriminately fired the paintball gun into the crowd at protesters and press alike. The man shot somebody’s phone while they were recording the spectacle, denting the area below the camera and shattering the screen on the other side.

As the U-Haul continued down the road, the men in the back poured the bags of ice onto the road while Lang spouted slogans alluding to white supremacist conspiracy theories into a megaphone attached to a speaker inside of the truck.

Behind the U-Haul was an all-black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows and Michigan license plates, aggressively tailing the truck in a convoy, nearly running over protesters in the process. According to Lang, the driver was another J6er.

At some point, both of the taillights on the Suburban were broken, and a dildo was stuck to its rear window.

Protesters continued to pursue the truck, eyes red and teary from being freshly pepper-sprayed, all the way to the end of the road where it connected with the highway. As the truck turned onto the highway entrance ramp, Lang–who was likely raised Jewish based on his mother’s Instagram–made one last gesture to the crowd: two full Nazi salutes.

This marked the conclusion of Lang’s activity in the North Star State for the time being, a time riddled with repeated embarrassments, failures and head staples for the violent J6 rioter, who has simultaneously been campaigning for the open U.S. Senate seat in Florida since he was released from prison last year. His appearances have been designed to draw attention and gain notoriety, using edgy slogans and gestures, such as burning Qurans and Seig Heiling, to agitate counter-protesters and draw cameras.

Later that same day, Lang appeared in an interview with an X user with less than 7,000 followers to discuss the action, where he compared the event with his Jan. 17 appearance at the Minneapolis City Hall, calling both instances attempted “lynchings” and calling it “thug violence.”

“These rabid liberals hate Jesus, they hate our country,” Lang said. “They were just animalistically, like monkeys, they were just picking things up off the ground and just heaving them.”

Lang told the interviewer that the police allow protesters to attack him and other conservatives because of a two-tiered justice system rigged against his kind. As a violent rioter who attacked police officers and was pardoned by the president, the irony is lost on him.

He also mentioned in the interview that he recently founded a pro-white Crusaders active club, followed by a broadside of white supremacist talking points, including demographic replacement and crime statistics.

Active clubs have been popular among neo-Nazis as a way of discreetly organizing white supremacist hate groups, often targeting young white men and using Telegram as a platform to communicate (pdf).

Lang first appeared at the Whipple Federal Building on Jan. 9, accompanied by Jayden Scott and Gregor Butzow, both Michiganders who were with him when he protested at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee days prior. There, Lang announced his intention to appear in Minneapolis and would throw out not his last Nazi salute.

At Whipple, Lang appeared with a Valentine’s Day balloon and a sign reading “We [Love] ICE,” with a wireless speaker in a pet carrier around his arm playing “Ice Ice Baby.”

The appearance almost immediately provoked protesters, who ran to heckle him until they were quickly dispersed by federal agents deploying tear gas and pepper balls. When the smoke cleared, Lang and his friends stood behind the agents as though they were his personal guards, standing ready to attack anyone who approached.

From this vantage point, Lang would continue to provoke protesters, who eventually found ways to snip the balloon strings and snatch away his sign.

This appearance was not the big event for Lang, who was instead building anticipation for an anti-Islam march he planned for Jan. 17 that would start downtown, where he planned on burning a Quran before he and whoever else arrived would march on the Somali-dense Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

When that day came a week later, it’s unlikely Lang expected the kind of counter-protester turnout that he drew. Thousands filled the street behind Minneapolis City Hall, where Lang intended to burn a Quran he brought with him.

When the time came for that, the streets echoed with the throng of protesters chanting “leave” and competing wireless speakers blasting Christmas and Disney music, drowning out whatever Lang was saying.

As the hours progressed, Lang’s cocky grin disintegrated into a worried frown, constantly gesturing to the crowd of protesters who boxed him into a window recess of City Hall to calm down and quickly ducking whenever a water balloon or snowball whizzed past his head.

Eventually, multiple men, Muslim and Black, decided to shepherd Lang away, pulling him off the window where he would disappear into the raging sea of protesters. Despite being guarded by these men, people still found, and happily took, opportunities to punch him and kick him in the head.

They escorted him as far as the Hotel Indigo, where protesters and media chased him through the first floor and out the back. A red Tesla, co-piloted by a trans woman, would pick him up before speeding off, but not before protesters caught up and tried to pull him out, damaging the vehicle in the process.

Lang’s next communique was from the hospital, where he had to have staples put into the back of his head to close a nasty gash he received in the scuffle. He posted a GiveSendGo link, a conservative alternative to GoFundMe, asking for supporters to help him crowdfund $20,000 to help pay for medical expenses and body guards.

By the time Lang would make his last appearance at Whipple, he raised roughly $15,000 on his GiveSendGo, only three-quarters of what he hoped to raise.

Shortly after, he announced he would be back to Minneapolis once again. On Jan. 28 he posted to his X account that he would be appearing at the Minnesota State Capitol for a rally. He mentioned in the statement that he “officially SECURED the PERMIT for the Rotunda!!” This was immediately disputed by Capitol officials, who had no knowledge of the planned event.

On his return to Minnesota, right-wing troll Zak X, formerly Zachary Stumpf, picked him up from the airport to drive him to his Airbnb. According to Zak X, when Lang went to put his bags in the back of X’s car, X told Lang he had a subwoofer in the back of his car, and Lang called X the ‘n-word.’

“I do feel like he’s a white supremist [sic],” X said in a video posted to his Facebook on Feb. 7. “His message is not great. I think he’s all about shock value.”

X, who met Lang on Jan. 9 at the Whipple building and appeared alongside him at his hate rally, was told by Lang he was “no longer a crusader” and was unfriended on social media after X refused to help him on Feb. 7, instead choosing to harass protesters from his car with a megaphone.

X, who legally changed his name from Zachary Allen Stumpf to Zak X in 2024, first appeared at the Whipple building in December when he physically assaulted multiple protesters. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office charged X with fifth-degree assault and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty referred to it as an instance of political violence.

On Feb. 2, Lang decided not to go to a hospital to have the staples in the back of his head removed and instead posted a video to his X account of fellow J6er and Proud Boy Zach Rehl using wire cutters to remove them.

The next day, Lang, Scott and Butzow were kicked out of the BLVD Tavern in West St. Paul on Feb. 3 when the owners of the bar refused service to him. Lang and Scott, on being shown the door by bar staff, threatened to call ICE on the establishment and referred to some of the staff as “anchor babies.” This would not be the only time Lang was refused service in the Twin Cities, according to Lang in a later interview reposted to his X account.

Two days later, the veteran advocacy group Common Defense erected an ice sculpture in front of the state capitol reading “prosecute ICE.” Only hours after it was announced, Lang appeared in an outfit similar to the one he would wear on Feb. 7, only he was wearing extremely tight camouflage pants that clearly inhibited his movement.

Immediately winded after running up seven steps, he then went right in to kick over the S but slipped on it and had to wind up for another kick from the other side. With each kick, he made a sharp exhale and a squeaking sound, clearly audible through the wireless microphone attached to his plate carrier.

Not long afterward, Lang was arrested by two highway patrol officers and transported to the Ramsey County Jail, where he was charged with felony property destruction. The charge could carry with it up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

After his initial court hearing the next day, the judge released him on bond with the condition that he be barred from walking within three blocks of the Capitol building. On top of that, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office trespassed him from the area, ensuring he wouldn’t be able to make his much-anticipated return to the Minnesota public.

In a Feb. 6 interview with InfoWars, Lang told Harrison Smith that they–presumably the ‘Marxist Atheist Democratic Party elite’ – put him in jail with the hopes he would be killed.

“They’re trying to throw me in there with the Somali gangs to get me killed,” Lang said. “All kinds of Antifa prison guards, some patriots – a lot of patriot prison guards, too, had my back. But these people are not kidding … they want to replace us.”

According to the statement of probable cause, Lang requested to be placed in protective custody while in county jail in St. Paul, which the Ramsey County Sheriff granted.

Enrique Tarrio, former leader of the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist organization, who served part of his prison sentence alongside Lang for his involvement with the J6 riot, tried defending Lang on his X account as he simultaneously condemned his character.

“Jake’s a r*tard,” Tarrio wrote. “His methods are dumb as hell, he chases headlines like a crackhead chases the next hit, and yeah, 99% of people think he’s a clown.”

Lang’s next court hearing for the felony property damage is March 3 in St. Paul, but whether or not he will appear is unclear. Lang was charged with a DUI in Pennsylvania on June 20, 2025; the preliminary hearing has been rescheduled. The next preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 30, 2026.

It is unlikely Lang will return in the meantime. His organization, Americans Against Islamification, has a “Burqas and Bikinis March” scheduled for Feb. 14 in Tampa Bay, Florida, Lang’s home state. So far, only 11 people have RSVP’d for the event, mirroring the poor turnout at his Minnesota events.

As the media’s attention for Minneapolis increasingly wanes a month after the departure of former Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino, the presence of right-wing trolls appears to have tapered off as well, with Lang’s U-Haul shenanigans capping off the period of grifters farming content off of the unrest.

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Editor’s note: None of the right-wing grifters in the Twin Cities since Operation Metro Surge are from Minnesota, neither Jake Lang, Jayden Scott, Gregor Butzow, Cam Higby, Nick Sortor, nor Nick Shirley. Racialized rage baiting for clicks is not new to Minneapolis. Over a decade ago, in November 2015, white supremacists radicalized on the internet antagonized protesters seeking justice for Jamar Clark and during a session of trolling, Allen ‘Lance’ Scarsella shot five people. His racially motivated attack gained him ten years in prison. He was released from prison on Jan. 5 this year and is currently under the supervision of the MNDOC Interstate Supervision Unit.

Cover image and photos contributed by L. Cam Anderson.

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