An 18-year-old Donald Trump supporter is facing a felony charge after police say he threatened two Kamala Harris supporters with a two-foot (60-centimeter) machete as they campaigned outside a Florida early voting site.
Caleb James Williams is charged with felony aggravated assault on a person 65 or older and misdemeanor exhibition of a dangerous weapon, Neptune Beach police records show.
Police Chief Michael Key Jr. said Williams and seven 16- and 17-year-olds drove to a suburban Jacksonville library Tuesday afternoon specifically “to protest and antagonize the opposing political side.” Carrying Trump flags, they began yelling at a group of Harris supporters and that escalated.
Key displayed a photo taken by a witness of a smiling Williams “brandishing a machete in an aggressive, threatening posture over his head.” The Harris supporters he allegedly threatened are women aged 71 and 54.
“This goes way beyond expressing freedom of speech. To say your piece is your First Amendment protected right, but that goes out the window the moment you raise a machete over your head,” Key said. Neptune Beach is an upscale suburb of 7,000 residents with a median income of $110,000, according to census records.
Williams, a restaurant busboy, was being held Wednesday afternoon at the Duval County Jail on $55,000 bail after making his first court appearance. If the registered Republican is released, the judge ordered him to stay 1,000 feet (300 meters) from any polling place except to cast his own ballot and to wear an ankle monitor.
Duval Public Defender Charlie Cofer, whose office has been assigned Williams' case, declined to comment. Williams' father did not return messages left on his cellphone. The minimum sentence for aggravated assault on a senior in Florida is three years in prison. The maximum is 15.
Key said the seven juveniles with Williams did not appear to have committed any crimes, but the investigation is ongoing.
Duval County Democratic Chair Daniel Henry said Williams committed “a troubling act of intimidation.”
“Violence and intimidation have no place in our democratic process. The Duval County Democratic Party stands with those who seek to express their views peacefully and without fear of reprisal. We urge all citizens to continue engaging in civic activities respectfully and lawfully," Henry said in a statement.
Dean Black, Duval's Republican chair, thanked police for arresting Williams but said in a statement that Democrats and others are to blame for the angry political atmosphere surrounding the election.
“In an environment of high political tension, where President Trump has survived two assassination attempts and Republican supporters are derided as Nazis and called ‘garbage’ by Joe Biden, we urge calm,” Black said.
President Biden, speaking Tuesday about a comedian at a weekend Trump rally calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters."
The 19-year-old Pennsylvania man who fired at Trump during a July rally, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican but had made a $15 donation to a Democratic group. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Ryan Routh, who was charged last month with staking out Trump at his Florida golf course in hopes of shooting him, was once a registered Democrat but says he voted for Trump in 2016. He is currently a registered independent. He also wrote a book calling for Iran to assassinate Trump.
