Welcome to Arrest Stories. A thirty-year-old man was arrested in Saint Paul, Minnesota after allegedly vandalizing a permitted ice sculpture display at the state capitol and posting video of the incident on social media. Here's what may have happened.
On February fifth, twenty twenty-six, around two thirty in the afternoon, Jake Lang was seen kicking and breaking parts of an ice sculpture that read Prosecute ICE at the Minnesota State Capitol promenade. The sculpture was a permitted display that had been installed earlier that same day by a group of veterans protesting ICE's ongoing presence in Minnesota.
According to police reports, Lang kicked over letters of the ice sculpture to make it read Pro ICE instead of its original message. Lang posted a video to social media showing himself kicking the newly-installed sculpture on the front steps of the Capitol.
After damaging the sculpture, Lang was seen leaving the area in a vehicle. A state trooper stopped him at Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard and University Avenue in Saint Paul. Lang was arrested without incident and booked at the Ramsey County Jail for suspicion of criminal damage to property.
One official stated, "Mister Lang was arrested without incident and brought to the Ramsey County Jail to be booked for suspicion of criminal damage to property."
Lang defended his actions, saying "I think I exercised my First Amendment right to speak and protest" and "it's definitely good for getting the buzz out there."
A veteran who helped install the display responded to the incident, stating "I gave eight years of my life in service to this country in the military. For a January sixth insurrectionist to destroy our display is an attack on the First Amendment veterans like me fought to defend."
The incident occurred the same day that Adam Johnson, who was photographed carrying then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's podium during the January sixth Capitol riot, filed to run for Manatee County Commission in Florida.
All suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not take this report as factual, always verify facts. Thanks for watching Arrest Stories.