More than two dozen anti-Israel protesters were arrested overnight in the latest unrest to plague the Big Apple, including a serial demonstrator and Brooklyn bartender who once allegedly refused to serve a Jewish patron.
At least 27 people were cuffed as demonstrations near the star-studded Met Gala on the Upper East Side descended into chaos Monday evening – ending with a mob vandalizing a World War I memorial in Central Park and burning an American flag, cops said.
Among those nabbed was repeat offender Alvin Dan, 32, of Staten Island, who was one of the pro-Palestine protesters busted for disrupting last year’s iconic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, according to police sources.
Dan was also accused of harassing a conservative Jewish journalist out of the Bedford-Stuyvesant bar where he worked in April last year because of the patron’s Zionist views, a lawsuit alleged at the time.
The serial anti-Israel protester was slapped with a resisting arrest charge and cut loose on a desk appearance ticket following Monday’s unrest, police sources said.
Four others, too, were given desk appearance tickets on criminal trespass and resisting arrest charges, while 21 were released on summonses.
Meanwhile, Leila Nouri, 21, was hit with a felony assault and resisting charge, the sources said.
The chaos erupted after a mob of more than 1,000 protesters tried to descend on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Met Gala as part of a “Day of Rage” protest organized by the Palestinian activist group Within Our Lifetime.
The arrested protesters were cuffed in the vicinity of Madison Avenue and East 83rd Street after marching from CUNY’s Hunter College, sources said.
After being blocked by cops and diverted towards Central Park, anarchists desecrated the WWI 107th Infantry Memorial, torched the US flag and vandalized a Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman monument in Grand Army Plaza.
The protesters scrawled “Gaza” in large black letters across the monuments and plastered the statues with stickers of the Palestinian flag that read “Stop the Genocide. End the apartheid. Free Palestine.”
“Let me be clear – this is unacceptable behavior that will not be tolerated,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Operations Kaz Daughtry tweeted of the “heinous crime.”
“We will leave no stone unturned until the perpetrators are brought to justice. Vandalizing a memorial, a symbol of remembrance and honor, is not only an act of criminal mischief but also a disrespect to the sacrifices of those who served our country.
“Let this serve as a warning to anyone who dares to deface our city’s landmarks – there will be consequences,” he added.