Police in Miami Beach have arrested a Jewish man who shot two people in a car, believing they were Palestinian but who were actually Israeli tourists.
Mordechai Brafman, 27, opened fire on the two last Saturday night, firing 17 shots, believed he had “shot and killed” two Palestinians.
Local reports say he told police that “while he was driving his truck, he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both.”
Brafman, a plumber, who was driving his truck at the time of the incident, has been charged with attempted murder and is due in court this week.
“It was a truck passing next to us,” Ari Revay, one of the men shot, told Local 10 News on Sunday evening. “‘Boom, boom, boom,’ and he randomly started shooting.”
Revay added, “He put the window down, driver’s seat, and just blasted at us.”
Revay’s father said Brafman tried shooting them from the back of his car. The bullet “went through right next to my ear because I was the driver,” he said through his relative.
“God, life is a gift,” Ari Revay said, “happy” and thankful to still be alive.
Brafman was seen on surveillance video driving south on Pine Tree Drive and then making a U-turn at 48th Street before driving by the victim’s vehicle, which was in the left lane, and stopping directly in front of them in the right lane.
One victim was hit in the left shoulder and the other’s forearm was grazed by a bullet. Neither of them were Palestinians.
In a post on Facebook Revay shared an image of himself in a hospital bed, noting that his father had been wearing a kippah at the time of the shooting.
