Rep. Brandon Williams, whose house was targeted on Christmas Day with a false police report claiming that gunshots were heard there, told Newsmax on Thursday that he was targeted because of his support of Israel.
He vowed he would not be intimidated, however.
"I'm an outspoken supporter of Israel," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "I stood in counterprotest to the pro-Hamas protesters that came in the Cannon [House office] building, and I stood over them with an Israel flag as the lone counterprotester. I won't be intimidated by these people. It's absolutely unacceptable."
Williams said such people "try to intimidate or disrupt so that they can take control of the situation in our society so that they can get power, and I'm just not going to let them do it."
Williams said that on Christmas, he received a call from the local sheriff's department telling him they got a report of a shooting at his home and that police were on their way.
"I met them outside trying to de-escalate the situation because law enforcement doesn't know what they're rolling in on, so just trying to make it abundantly clear that this was a false report," he said.
Video shows several police vehicles arriving at Williams' house, where he said they "rolled up heavy."
Williams also spoke out against a local newspaper that showed a photograph of his house in a report, and complained that "we don't talk to them anymore because they twist everything so badly."
"To publish a picture of my home as it appears from the road, somehow they feel justified in this," Williams said. "I think it's a direct assault in my family. It's an invitation for people to continue this intimidation tactic."
He added that protesters have been putting signs in his family's yard in support of Hamas.
"It's very disconcerting to my family," Williams said. "These are the tactics of the progressive left. You just have to know that this is how they plan on winning, by intimidating by disrupting our systems, keeping the police tied up with these phony reports instead of being ready to serve the public."
By creating this type of doubt, "they can take control and they can get power," he said. "It's exactly what happened in the 1920s in Germany, exactly what's happening here, and we have to stand up."
Williams said he knows his local law enforcement team, "and they're fantastic" so he wanted to make the situation easier.
"The police don't want to roll in with bad information," he said. '"Every situation that they face is, frankly, a cloud of fog. ... You really have to be sympathetic to what they are going through, and if you can be as cooperative and friendly and as you can just to de-escalate so that they can do their job, that's what we did.
"We sent them home with homemade cookies on Christmas Day and some spiced nuts, just to say thanks."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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