Rep. Max Miller May Have Filed a False Police Report
Dr. Feras Hamdan Pleaded Not Guilty to Charges on Friday, June 20th.
Mr. Miller, it appears you may have been caught in a lie!
Shortly after an incident around 9:30a.m. on June 19th, you posted the following accusation on Twitter:
“…the life of me and my family was threatened by a person who proceeded to throw a Palestinian flag out the window of their vehicle before taking off.”
But wait! At 3:16PM you made some edits… All of the sudden, that flag wasn’t THROWN… It was “shown”?
“… the life of me and my family was threatened by a person who proceeded to show a Palestinian flag before taking off.”
This is not a “typo” or a minor correction.
By changing this one sentence in your tweet, you have shifted the entire narrative of what happened and damaged your credibility.
If you cannot tell the difference between a real flag being waved out of the window of a vehicle and an image of a flag on a phone screen, then I fear you are not capable of providing an accurate account of the situation.
The Rocky River Police Department released this statement on Facebook:
It took me a while, but I finally found the 911 call. He claims the dispatcher heard some of the confrontation, but that has not been released.
But the actual police report is not yet available to the public. Though that didn’t stop them from filing criminal charges and locking up Dr. Feras Hamdan on solely the word of a politician and nothing more. The police even stated they DID NOT LOCATE the vehicle or a flag, but they made up some excuse about how the flag could have been thrown out of the car or window?
Last time I dealt with the police about a serious matter, they told me they couldn’t do anything without proof… But yet a white man makes a complaint about a brown man, and suddenly the brown man is locked up with a $500,000 bond.
According to the Rocky River Police Department, Miller can be heard saying, “My name is Congressman Max Miller. I was just driving to work, and I was cut off by a man in a Tesla who held up a Palestinian flag to me and then rolled down his window and said that ‘I’m going to cut your throat and your daughter’s.’”
Reports by WOIO/Gray News states that Miller claimed “he was on Interstate 90 and driving to work when a man laid on his horn. The man then ran him off the road when he couldn’t get his attention, Miller said, all while trying to show the Palestinian flag. Miller also said the man yelled, ‘Death to Israel,’ and threatened to kill him and his family.”
Of course, we do not have access to the police reports or to any witness statements (or know if there were any witnesses at all). I just find it very difficult to believe that anyone could make such a claim as Mr. Miller without proof and expect to be believed so readily.
If it weren’t for the recent assassination of Melissa and Mark Hortman and the attempted assassination of John and Yvette Hoffman by Vance Boelter (a politically motivated attack), I doubt very much that this incident would have blown up in this way… Though that is purely personal opinion and speculation, at this time.
Dr. Feras Hamdan, 36-years-old of Avon, Ohio, the one accused in the road rage incident, voluntarily turned himself in with his attorney once the arrest warrant was issued. He pleaded NOT GUILTY to charges of aggravated menacing and ethnic intimidation on Friday, June 20th, and he is being required to give up his passport until the conclusion of the investigation, and is not to contact Mr. Miller or his family.
Dr. Hamdan is due in court on July 8th
The case remains under investigation by the Rocky River Police, as well as multiple other agencies*. My personal hope is that if Mr. Miller did, in fact, lie about this situation, that Dr. Hamdan will be able to sue for defamation. There is no evidence of abusive or hateful behavior in Dr. Hamdan’s past, and it appears to be very out of character, so I have a hard time believing Mr. Miller’s version of the incident.
The Straits Times has the best reporting I’ve seen so far on the incident, as it includes the original quote from Max Miller that the accused “waved a Palestinian flag” as well as a statement from Dr. Hamdan’s attorney, Issa Elkhatib.
In their written statement, they claim that…
You can bet I will be calling Mr. Max Miller’s offices on Monday to let him know that while violence has no place in our society, especially in our politics, neither does lying about it. I have serious doubts about his story, and I feel that facts matter. If it turns out that Dr. Hamdan did indeed commit a hate crime, then he should face the consequences of that. But I will demand that if Mr. Miller LIED about being the victim of a hate crime, then he ought to face the consequences as well.
Contact Max Miller at all three locations and let him know we noticed his little slip up. Sorry if his divorce is going badly, he can’t take it out on the people of our community!
DC: 202-225-3876 (opt 4)
Parma: 440-692-6120
Medina: 330-661-6654