Anti-Netanyahu Protesters Who Battled Police, Burned American Flags at Washington, Included a Former Teen Beauty Queen

An ex-beauty pageant winner was among the rioters at an anti-Israel protest Wednesday at Washington, where American flags were burned, the Sun has learned.

The beauty queen, a former Miss Maryland Teen USA, is listed on a court docket as having been charged, along with nine others, with at least five crimes for actions during the protest outside Union Station in the nation’s capital.

The severely understaffed police contingent barely managed to contain the swarm of anti-Israel protesters, pushing back thousands of rioters, many of whom are repeat offenders from previous rallies.

The charges faced by Miss Maryland Teen USA 2022, Sonia Krishan, a psychology student at New York University, include defacing public buildings, violent behavior, and inciting violence. She was caught by police climbing up a flagpole.

The 21-year-old model has extensive acting and film training, as well as circus training in trapeze, and even made an appearance in Merry Little Switchmas. On Instagram, she currently promotes the GoFundMe of a family in Gaza who are trying to rebuild their home. 

Ms. Krishan has not responded to the Sun’s requests seeking comment. Efforts to reach Ms. Krishan’s lawyer, Martine Kaplan, were so far unsuccessful.

Essa E. Ejelat, Zachary Kam, Roger Miller, Sean Fairfield, Tania Jackson, and Nathanial Lawrence are among the other individuals arraigned in court today for their actions in the riots.

They face a range of charges such as resisting arrest, assaulting police officers, and defacing public property. They have been mandated to appear for trial in August. 

A barber from Yonkers in his early 30s, Essa Ejelat, had previously been charged with obstruction at a pro-Palestinian riot in New York City, and has now been charged with resisting arrest and engaging in violent behavior.

A 33-year-old marine veteran, Zachary Kam, is currently charged with assaulting a police officer. He had already participated in a pro-Palestinian riot in Chicago and burned an American flag.

He said he did so “because the American people need to wake up to the reality of what’s happening in Palestine,” WBEZ reported at the time of that incident.

Roger Miller, 43, had responded “don’t support genocide” to a video on X showcasing the cleaning of the Liberty Bell in Philadephia, which had been defaced with pro-Hamas graffiti during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday.

Mr. Miller has 4 charges pending against him, including defacing monuments, defacing public property, and inciting violence. 

Tania Jackson, 30, was charged with crossing police lines, resisting arrest, and unlawful entry. Sean J. Fairfield, 19, faces five charges, including inciting violence and defacing public property. 

Twenty-nine DC police officers went up against the sea of rioters at Union Station in an attempt to contain the chaos just blocks from the Capitol, with some in the mob even hurling feces at law enforcement.

Rioters doused monuments in graffiti with pro-Hamas slogans and tore down and burned American flags, replacing them with Palestinian flags, which they hoisted on the flagpoles outside of Union Station.

The chairman of the Park Police Fraternal Order, Kenneth Spencer, railed against the “officer staffing crisis” in a statement and said that the small police force managed 10 arrests while “being assaulted by a mob of thousands.”

The officers were also manhandled by members of the crowd, and threw objects that “had a very strong smell of feces,” but did not hit anybody, according to Mr. Spencer.

He also said the Department of the Interior and many journalists are unfairly accusing the police of giving many of the rioters a “pass” after not arresting them yesterday.

Other officers are stationed at “major soft targets, terrorist targets in Washington, DC, New York and San Francisco,” Mr. Spencer said in an interview. He also said that the police have fewer officers now than at the time of the BLM riots. 

Many of the individuals have been handed restraining orders by the court, keeping them from going near Union Station and other individuals. The Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, said in a letter that the actions of the mob are a direct result of the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service’s failure to provide the police with sufficient resources.