A man described as being in his 50s or 60s slipped anti-Muslim flyers under windshield wipers in a parking lot next to the Rocky River High School football stadium, prompting a police investigation and a swift condemnation from school leaders and a national civil rights group. The flyers claimed, bizarrely, that the minds of Islamic males were controlled by aliens, and a student spotted the man and alerted the school's resource officer, who escorted him off campus.
According to cleveland.com, the student approached the resource officer at about 3:10 p.m. and reported seeing the unknown man in the lot. The officer told him he was not allowed to distribute flyers on school property, and police later recovered copies of the anti-Muslim material from the scene. Police said they are still working to identify him.
There is some discrepancy in local reporting about exactly when the incident unfolded. Cleveland.com dated the flyer distribution to Sept. 30, while a CAIR-Ohio statement referred to hateful messages left on windshields in the school's parking lot on Oct. 1. Rocky River Police Chief George Lichman said, per cleveland.com's earlier report, that the police report was not yet complete.
School Leaders and CAIR Respond
Rocky River High School Principal Carrie Knapp and Superintendent Adham Schirg addressed the incident directly, saying messages of hate and discrimination do not reflect the values of their schools or their community. They committed to maintaining a school community where every student, staff member and family is treated with dignity and respect, according to the seed reporting from Lizzie Kaboski, who covers criminal justice for cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations spoke out against the flyer incident as well. CAIR-Ohio's Faten Husni Odeh said messages that target individuals based on their faith, identity, or background have no place in schools, and she said she was encouraged by the school district's leadership and response to the flyers. Odeh added that she hopes more schools respond similarly to instances of prejudice, saying creating safe, welcoming environments for all is a reflection of shared values.
A Record Year for Reported Bias
The Rocky River case lands amid what CAIR describes as its highest-ever tally of anti-Muslim complaints nationwide. CAIR documented 8,683 anti-Muslim bias complaints in 2025, the highest number the organization has recorded since it began publishing civil rights reports in 1996, per its statement on the Rocky River response.
Odeh, who entered her CAIR-Ohio role in 2023, has tracked the local trend closely. The chapter received approximately 60 reported Islamophobia incidents in 2023, a number that climbed to over 400 by the end of that year — a spike Odeh attributed to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. The following year, the Ohio chapter received over 500 reported Islamophobia incidents, and CAIR's 2025 report logged 773 civil rights incidents overall, including hate-crime-related vandalism, harassment, or threats against mosques and Muslim-owned businesses.
Odeh believes many Islamophobic incidents go unreported altogether, telling cleveland.com that community members often do not feel comfortable telling authorities about these incidents and that some fear retaliation from schools or employers. FBI crime statistics cited in the seed reporting showed that 2% of hate crimes reported in Ohio over the last five years were anti-Islamic.
A Stalled Push to Toughen Ohio's Hate Crime Law
Ohio lawmakers introduced House Bill 306, known as the Hate Crime Act, which would have broadened the protected categories and types of violent offenses eligible for a hate-crime enhancement under state law. The bill would have changed Ohio's ethnic intimidation law, which currently covers crimes motivated by race, color, religion or national origin, and would have raised the penalty for any crime qualifying as a hate crime. The legislation did not move past the House committee.
The Rocky River case is not the only flyer incident to draw scrutiny in Ohio this year. CAIR-Ohio previously joined the Columbus NAACP in condemning the distribution of Ku Klux Klan flyers to homes in Worthington and Clintonville, and neighbors, city leaders and school leaders in several central Ohio neighborhoods spoke out after hateful flyers turned up there as well.
