Florida police arrested a 27-year-old Jewish man, Mordechai Brafman, on suspicion of attempting to murder two men he believed were Palestinian. The victims were an Israeli father and son visiting from Israel.
According to investigators, Brafman overtook their car in Miami Beach, made a U-turn, exited his vehicle and fired 17 shots at them. Local authorities said Brafman didn’t know the victims and there was no prior confrontation between the sides.
Brafman drove home after the shooting and was arrested shortly after. He is charged with attempted murder. While police have not officially determined a motive, they said: “It should be noted that, while in custody in our interview room, the defendant spontaneously stated that while he was driving his truck, he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both. The victims and the defendant do not know each other,” Police added that he told investigators he had killed them.
Brafman, a married plumber, was interviewed last year by Florida media after vandals targeted a Miami Beach bagel shop displaying an Israeli flag. “It’s just horrifying,” he said at the time. “I’d like to see more unity, for people to fight less with each other and be more together.”
That wouldn’t fall under the purview of hate-crime law I.M.O (disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer) because neither the intended nor the actual target was targeted on the basis of an identity category (ethnicity, gender, creed, race, religion, nationality). Not unless you include occupation as an identity. I don’t.
Yeah that makes sense, but I’d also not call a death threat terrorism if aimed at one person denying your health coverage. If a death threat is terrorism, then every assault / murder would have to be I’d think
Yeah and it wasn’t a super clear death threat. Definitely rude but I think terrorism is a clearly excessive charge. I don’t think it’s right to target individuals, especially lower level ones when it’s the corporate “entity” as a whole, especially the higher-ups at fault.
Yeah, what they did was wrong. That said, it was a phone call, and “you people are next” is what I found when I looked it back up. Meaning it’s not like the individual on the other end of the phone was likely even in the same city, county, state? As the lady who threatened them. Stupid move but I feel I could hear worse at the local gas station every Friday night and they aren’t denying people health coverage, just wanting them to pay full price for a slurpee