A New York city councilwoman was arrested after carrying a gun on her hip at a pro-Palestine rally at CUNY Brooklyn College.
Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov of Brooklyn, who is Jewish, turned herself in to the NYPD early Friday after showing up at the school’s Flatbush campus, where hundreds gathered to support Palestine after the Hamas attack killed over 1,000 Israelis were killed.
Officers reportedly contacted her to inform her that she was being charged with criminal possession of a firearm, the New York Post reported.
Vernikov, 39, was released with a desk appearance ticket and ordered to surrender her gun, a Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter, and her concealed carry license, which she received just last month.
Although she had a license, it is a Class E felony to bring a weapon into a protest or school grounds, which are considered “sensitive locations.”
Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov of Brooklyn was arrested after carrying a gun on her hip while attending a pro-Palestine rally at CUNY Brooklyn College
“I’m here at the pro-Hamas rally at Brooklyn College. “There are a lot of police and we made sure that the Jewish students feel safe today,” she said
Brooklyn College’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) student group is just one of many across the country that have mobilized to justify the Hamas attack on Israel
“I’m here at the pro-Hamas rally at Brooklyn College. There are a lot of police and we made sure that the Jewish students feel safe today, but here they are screaming and shouting: “Intifada, globalize the Intifida!” said Vernikov in a video posted on X from the protest.
“If you stand here today alongside these people, you are nothing less than a terrorist without the bombs.”
Vernikov represents Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay and surrounding neighborhoods and is a member of the council’s Standards and Ethics Committee.
The account CUNY4Palestine
“These are the tactics of violence and intimidation used by Zionist groups to silence all support for Palestine.”
Brooklyn College’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) student group is just one of many across the country that have mobilized to justify the Hamas attack on Israel, arguing that Israel is responsible for the violence.
“Harvard found itself in trouble after 31 of its student organizations signed a letter blaming the Israeli regime for all the violence.”
In their statement on Sunday, the groups said the attack that left more than 1,000 people dead “did not occur in a vacuum” and claimed the Israeli government had forced Palestinians “to live in an open-air prison for over two decades “.
California State University’s La Fuerza student union has been criticized for its “disgusting” and tasteless pro-Palestine protest poster (pictured), which features a paraglider
“Nazis, Nazis, Nazis,” a man in a keffiyeh with Palestinian colors repeatedly shouted at the counter-demonstrators
Perfume giant Jo Malone distanced itself from company founder Jo Malone after revealed that he was one of the leaders of the group, the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Harvard President Claudine Gay released a message Thursday condemning the “barbaric atrocities of Hamas,” but rejected calls to punish and name the students who signed the inflammatory statement, saying the school “confesses to freedom of expression”.
Gay previously said, “While our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group – not even 30 student groups – speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman claimed that other CEOs want to know who they are so that “none of us accidentally hire one of their members.”
The CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management said he had been approached by “multiple CEOs” and added: “You shouldn’t be able to hide behind a corporate shield when making statements that support the actions of terrorists who, like us now learned to have done this, decapitated babies, among other unimaginably despicable acts.’
The statement was signed by several other groups on the notoriously left-wing campus, including Koreans for Decolonization and Central Americans for Empowerment
On Tuesday, around 150 people occupied the steps of Cambridge City Hall with placards and Palestinian flags.
“Animals, animals, you pigs, animals, Nazis, Nazis, Nazis,” a man in a keffiyeh in Palestinian colors shouted at them, waving his finger across the thin police line separating the groups.
Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley group Bears for Palestine expressed support for Hamas’ actions and condemned “the portrayal of Israel as a victim” just hours after the terrorist organization’s attack.
The group will hold a vigil for “Martyrs in Palestine” on Friday and has promoted Student for Justice in Palestine (SJP) calls for a “Day of Resistance” on university campuses on Thursday in support of Hamas attacks.
The Palestine Solidarity Committee holds banners in front of the prestigious college
On Thursday’s “Day of Resistance,” several Jewish students at the University of Washington wept as they pleaded with an administrator to put an end to the pro-Palestinian rally where students condoned violence against Israel and the Jewish people.
“They want our people dead.” “They want us killed,” a student sobs to an administrator who appears to be listening but suggests there is something he can do.
The event on the campus’s Red Square was promoted by a radical student group that said its goal was to “strengthen righteous Palestinian resistance” and “condemn the settler-colonial state of Israel.”
Flyers for the event featured a paraglider similar to those used by Hamas militants to fly into southern Israel last Saturday and massacre scores of innocent concertgoers.
‘Worse than ISIS’: Photo of a bloody child’s bed posted by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
A house in ruins following an attack by Hamas militants on this kibbutz a few days earlier, killing dozens of civilians near the Gaza border
At NYU, the president of the Law School Bar Association had a job offer from an LGBTQ+ law firm rescinded after she said that Hamas’s slaughter of children in Israel was “necessary.”
Ryna Workman, 24, a non-binary student at NYU School of Law, sent a weekly newsletter saying that the murder of innocent Israeli children, women and citizens last week was Israel’s “full responsibility.”
On Tuesday, law firm Winston & Strawn – which regularly highlights its legal work representing the LGBTQ+ community – told in a statement that its job offer to Workman had been withdrawn.
The number of US citizens confirmed to have died in the Israel-Hamas war has risen to at least 25. US citizens are among an estimated 150 hostages captured by Hamas militants in their shocking weekend attack on Israel, President Joe Biden confirmed on Tuesday.
The war has already claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides.