By Brad Brooks
(Reuters) -Police in Ohio said on Friday they had arrested a man after he allegedly ran a U.S. Congressman off a road, threatened the politician and his family, and yelled antisemitic slurs and waved a Palestinian flag before fleeing.
Police in Rocky River, Ohio, said in a statement that they had arrested Feras Hamdan, 36, of Ohio, in connection to the alleged targeting on Thursday of U.S. Representative Max Miller, a Republican representing Ohio, in the suburb about 10 miles (16 km) west of downtown Cleveland. Hamdan, police said, voluntarily turned himself into police.
Hamdan was arraigned on Friday and charged with aggravated menacing and ethnic intimidation, according to Deborah Comery, the Rocky River Municipal Court clerk. Hamdan, who could face up to five months in jail, pleaded not guilty and is being held on a $500,000 bond.
Hamdan’s attorney, Issa Elkhatib, said in a written statement that the allegations against Hamdan were “baseless and outrageous” and that they “amount to defamatory attacks on his character and reputation.”
Elkhatib said that Hamdan was a respected local doctor who had no prior criminal history, and that he was confident “the truth will win and that Dr. Hamdan’s good name will be fully vindicated.”
Political violence in the U.S. has been on the increase. A man in Minnesota was arrested on suspicion of assassinating a state lawmaker and her husband last weekend, and shooting and injuring another lawmaker and his wife.
The Rocky River police statement said that Miller called 911 on Thursday morning to report that he was run off the road while traveling with his family on Interstate 90 in Ohio. The police said Miller reported an assailant yelled antisemitic slurs and waved a Palestinian flag.
“The deranged hatred in this country has gotten out of control,” Miller wrote on social media.
“As a Marine, a proud Jewish American and a staunch defender of Israel, I will not hide in the face of this blatant antisemitic violence,” he wrote.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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