A Republican elected official on the New York City Council was charged with illegal gun possession on Friday after she showed up at a pro-Palestinian rally the day before with what appeared to be a handgun on her belt, which she had denounced, AFP New York police confirmed.
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The 39-year-old elected official of Ukrainian origin, Inna Vernikov, has repeatedly deplored the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have taken place in New York since the deadly attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Israel last Saturday.
She herself posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) that shows her near this pro-Palestinian student gathering near a university in Brooklyn.
She particularly denounced the “support of Hamas” and the desire to “import here in New York the terror that the Israeli people are now suffering.”
But in other videos and photos on social media, she can be seen “with the end of a gun sticking out of her pants,” a New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesman told AFP.
The NYPD states that “at no time was anyone threatened or injured” by carrying this weapon, but the elected official was still called to a police station, where she went with her lawyer that night.
Although New York state law grants permits to carry firearms, their public possession is regulated.
According to police, the elected official was charged with “illegal possession of a firearm” and had to surrender her “Smith & Wesson black 9mm” and her firearms license. According to New York City Council Republican Chairman Joe Borelli, quoted in the New York Times, she was served with a court subpoena.
Authorities stepped up security in New York on Friday as a new pro-Palestinian demonstration is planned for Times Square in the heart of Manhattan.