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Three Pro-Palestine protesters who disrupted Easter Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral were arrested Saturday (March 30) night, New York City Police Department officers confirmed to the New York Post on Sunday (March 31).
Matthew Menzies, 31, Gregory Schwedock, 35, and John Rozendaal, 63, were charged with disruption of religious service after shots of "free Palestine" during the service at the Manhattan cathedral just before 9:00 p.m. A video shared on X showed one of the protesters yelling "Free Palestine" as they were escorted out of the iconic church.
All three suspects have previously been arrested for protest-related incidents. Schwedock was arrested for disrupting the U.S. Open women's semifinal with other activists who used glue to prevent security from ejecting them while holding up a sign denouncing fossil fuels, which stalled the match for nearly 50 minutes, last year.
Rozendaal was previously arrested for spray panting "climate criminal and no new oil" on the window of a Citibank last April. All three men had attended a pro-Palestine march in Times Square prior to the incident at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
At least 1,400 people, including at least 31 American citizens, were killed and more than 3,400 were injured in the initial terror attacks on Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023, ABC News reported. More than 32,000 people have died in retaliation attacks on Gaza as of Wednesday, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said via the Associated Press.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, "we are in a war," in a video shared on social media after the attacks, which included land, air and sea as Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel's southern border and fired rockets from the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu ordered an "extensive reserve mobilization" in retaliation for the unprecedented attacks.