Photo by Jon Anderson
Tanveer Patel, a candidate for Hoover City Council Place 1, stands beside a board showing hateful and threatening comments toward her during a press conference in Birmingham, Alabama, on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.
Hoover police said today they are investigating a harassing communications complaint filed by a candidate for Hoover City Council involving death threats because of her Indian heritage and Muslim faith.
Tanveer Patel, a candidate for Hoover City Council Place 1, said in a press conference today that in the past few days she has been receiving hateful messages, insults and even death threats on her campaign Facebook page because of her heritage and faith.
Several commenters criticized her decision to wear a hijab and encouraged her to go back to India, and one comment by someone named Martin Watson warned her to go back or “you be shot to death.”
Watson also commented: “How come we’re not allowed to just shoot and kill these people and get them out of our f****** country? I don’t want Islam here, nor does all the Americans.”
Facebook screenshots courtesy of Tanveer Patel campaign
Facebook screenshots showing comments from the campaign Facebook page of Tanveer Patel, a candidate for Hoover City Council Place 1.
Patel, who moved to the United States from India in 1990 and has been a Hoover resident for more than 20 years, said these threats and insults have shaken her peace of mind, kept her from sleeping and deeply hurt her friends and community who are equally disturbed by this.
“To be told that I should be sent back to India, called a ‘raghead’ or to be threatened with violence is not only frightening; it is heartbreaking,” Patel said. “These threats are designed to silence me, to intimidate our community and to suppress our right to vote. But I want to be clear: I still believe in America. I still believe in the red, white and blue, and I still believe in the American dream — that no matter your faith or background, every citizen has the right to live free and to participate fully in this democracy. Hate will not win.”
William White, an attorney for Patel, said Patel filed her complaint with the Hoover Police Department on Friday and said both Hoover police and the FBI have been involved in the investigation and have identified a suspect in Georgia responsible for some of the comments.
Hoover police Capt. Keith Czeskleba confirmed that police did receive a harassing communications report from Patel and were investigating the matter but had no other information to report at this time.
Toni Herrera-Bast, a spokeswoman for the Birmingham field office of the FBI, said the FBI neither confirms nor denies the existence of any investigation related to this complaint.
White today thanked police and the FBI for taking quick action to address the matter but said some of Patel’s supporters have expressed concern about whether it’s safe for them to go to the polls to vote on Aug. 26.
Hoover police today issued a statement on their Facebook page encouraging all Hoover residents to vote in the municipal election next week.
“The safety of our residents, employees, businesses and visitors is always our top priority,” the Facebook post said. “We are committed to keeping everyone at all City of Hoover polling places safe on Election Day.”
White said some people might say this is a First Amendment issue and people have a right to freedom of speech, but this has gone far beyond that.
“There are personal threats — threats to shoot her in the head, death threats. That’s not a First Amendment right,” White said. “It’s become a safety issue. She has been told that she should be shot in the face — that members of the Muslim community should be taken out and shot. These aren’t idle words. These are direct threats of violence, and they’re intended to instill fear in her voter base. It’s intended to silence her voice and to suppress the rights to vote of those that support her. That’s not only hate speech. That’s a direct attack on our democracy.”
While free speech is protected, targeted threats of violence and coordinated attempts to intimidate voters are not protected, White said.
White said he is a Christian, “but I can tell you from my understanding of Christianity, Jesus would never condone a death threat. Threatening families, harassing neighbors and trying to make people fearful of going to the ballot box — that’s wrong, not only morally, but legally.”
White said Patel’s campaign calls on every Hoover resident to exercise their Constitutional right to vote, “but above all, we can on everybody to be better human beings. This is not acceptable. … We have to treat each of our community members with respect and with love.”
Akhlaque Haque, a supporter of Patel and 30-year resident of Hoover, said hatred has no place in the community. Muslims in America are peace loving people and productive citizens, he said.
“You cannot belittle this fact that we also see this as our home, and we are trying to strive to be better people just like anybody else and to give our community back more love than you can think of.”
Haque applauded Patel for being brave to run for public office as a Muslim woman with a hijab.
Ahmed Hammoud, another Hoover resident and supporter of Patel, said he has children and grandchildren in Hoover, including a granddaughter who just turned 18 and was looking forward to voting in an election for the first time but now is afraid.
Hammoud said he and his family were excited to be part of Hoover and want to be positive contributors to the community and this country and said these threats will not keep them from going to cast their votes.
Rashmee Sharif, a campaign project manager for Patel, said she was raised in Alabama, but this experience has been incredibly disorienting for herself and Patel.
“For the most part, Alabamians are kind, generous and respectful people and seem to really enjoy relationships with our community, but when we decided to take this on, the level of hate, the level of threat, the negativity has just been so incredibly alarming to me personally,” Sharif said.
“Tanveer Patel is a tenacious person. She is a savvy business woman,” Sharif said. “I have been so honored to be alongside her as one of her campaign project managers. She is incredibly talented, incredibly brave, and I’m so glad to be here standing beside her.”
Muslims in Alabama and across the United States are proud American citizens, from those who sell Cokes in gas stations to those who are brain surgeons at UAB, Sharif said.
“I’m just stunned that we’re receiving this level of vitriol, given all the different contributions that we make to this great state, to this great country,” she said. “I just pray moving forward in the last few days of this election that there are no more negative incidents, no more threats.”
Robin Schultz, the other candidate for Hoover City Council Place 1, said he didn’t know all the details of the comments made toward Patel but he is adamantly against the comments that have been described to him.
Schultz said he and Patel both recently committed to keeping their campaigns positive.
“We’re trying to run a civilized campaign — both of us are — she and I,” he said. “Obviously, we can’t control what other people do. She can’t control it. I can’t control it, but … I am completely opposed to it. I don’t condone it. We do not believe that anything like that is acceptable. … Both of us are attempting to serve the city of Hoover. I don’t believe it has a place in municipal politics or politics in general.”
Hoover's election is Aug. 26.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 8:58 p.m. to indicate that the FBI neither confirms nor denies the existence of any investigation related to this complaint.
