Ohio police have arrested a man for allegedly attempting to run Republican Rep. Max Miller off the road Thursday while using anti-Jewish slurs and flying a Palestinian flag.
Miller, 36, said in a video posted to X that an “unhinged, deranged man decided to lay on his horn and run me off the road when he couldn’t get my attention to show me a Palestinian flag.”
Feras S. Hamdan, also 36, was arrested and charged with aggravated menacing following an investigation, the Rocky River, Ohio, police department said in a Friday press release.
A police report says Miller accused Hamdan of calling him a “dirty Jew.”
“Congressman Miller reported he was driving on Interstate 90 [around 9:30 a.m. Thursday] when the suspect threatened him and his family along with making antisemitic slurs,” the department said.
“[T]he second party to the road rage incident was identified as [Hamdan] from Westlake… Hamdan voluntarily turned himself in at the Rocky River Police Department, with counsel, and is awaiting a court appearance.”
The First Amendment generally protects Americans’ use of religious and racial slurs, but when used in the commission of a crime can result in hate-crime designations for enhanced punishment.
It was not immediately clear if Hamdan will face more stringent prosecution as a result.
Miller, who represents and area south of Cleveland, is one of four Jewish House Republicans and worked in President Trump’s first administration as an advance and personnel office aide.
