ST. PAUL, Minn. — Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang was charged with damaging a $6,000 ice sculpture a veterans organization displayed on the front steps of the State Capitol.

Lang, 31, of Lake Worth, Florida, recorded social media videos of him on Thursday kicking down the ice sculpture that spelled out “prosecute ICE” to instead read “pro ICE.” After Lang hosted an anti-Muslim, pro-ICE rally last month, during which he was chased off by hundreds of protesters in downtown Minneapolis, he returned to Minnesota to host a rally at the Capitol on Saturday.

But on Thursday, he was arrested and booked into Ramsey County jail. The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged Lang with one felony count of first-degree damage to property Friday.

The art installation made of large blocks of ice was permitted to be on display Friday, charges state. Common Defense Organization, a veteran-led grassroots organization, paid a local artist $6,250 to to create the sculpture. Lang told troopers that he was exercising his “First Amendment Right to Artistic Expression,” charges state, and he admitted to recording himself damaging the sculpture.

Lt. Mike Lee of the Minnesota State Patrol said Capitol security dispatchers observed Lang damaging the permitted display at 2:30 p.m. Lang was seen leaving the area in a vehicle, and a trooper pulled him over nearby at MLK Jr. Boulevard and University Avenue.

Once placed into the squad car, charges said that he “asked a cohort to take a photo of him” and to be placed in protective custody at the jail where he was booked at 5 p.m. Thursday. He made a first court appearance Friday afternoon.

Common Defense said in an online statement that veterans had erected the commissioned sculpture earlier that day.

“Our community of veterans and partners exercised our First Amendment rights the right way. We organized, secured legal permits, and commissioned a professional ice sculpture to advocate for accountability in federal immigration operations. But while actual soldiers and veterans were doing the work of democracy, a professional agitator was allegedly looking for a photo op.”

The organization said while Lang “plays dress-up for social media clout, our movement is busy doing the real work of defending our communities and our Constitution.”

Lang was pardoned in 2025 by Trump after serving four years in prison on 11 charges including assault for attacking Capitol police officers with a baseball bat.

“I gave eight years of my life in service to this country in the military. For a January 6 insurrectionist to destroy our display is an attack on the First Amendment veterans like me fought to defend,” said Common Defense communications director Jacob Thomas in a statement.

Lang held an anti-Islam rally outside Minneapolis City Hall on Jan. 17, and has organized a pro-ICE rally at the Capitol for Saturday.

Protesters plan to show up at the Capitol in opposition to Lang, whom they accuse of inciting hateful, racist rhetoric in Minneapolis, a city on edge as the largest immigration enforcement in the country unfolds.

Lang falsely claimed that he secured a permit for the City Hall rotunda at his last rally. Capitol staff confirmed his claim of securing a permit in the Capitol Rotunda is also false.

Hundreds of protesters chased Lang off in downtown Minneapolis to prevent him from his stated plans to burn a Quran and march to the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, home to the city’s highest concentration of Somali American residents.

Good Samaritans helped Lang safely escape the crowd, including a 30-year-old Black man who escorted him downtown and a Black trans woman and Black woman who unexpectedly became his getaway drivers.

City leaders braced for chaos at Lang’s last rally, with National Guard vehicles staged on highway ramps into Cedar-Riverside.

But few supporters of Lang’s showed and were vastly outnumbered by Minneapolis residents there in support of their immigrant neighbors.

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—Allison Kite of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.

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