Trump supporter in Florida threatens Harris supporters with machete, cops say

An 18-year-old Donald Trump supporter has been charged with a felony after police say he threatened two Kamala Harris supporters with a two-foot machete while campaigning outside an early voting site in Florida.

According to Neptune Beach police, Caleb James Williams is charged with aggravated assault on a person 65 years of age or older and unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon.

Police Chief Michael Key Jr. said Williams and seven 16- and 17-year-olds came to a library in suburban Jacksonville on Tuesday afternoon specifically to “protest and confront the opposite political side.” Carrying Trump flags, they started yelling at a group of Harris supporters and it escalated.

Key showed a photo taken by a witness of a smiling Williams “swinging a machete in an aggressive, threatening position overhead.” The supporters of Harris, whom he allegedly threatened, are women aged 71 and 54.

“This goes far beyond the expression of freedom of speech. To say that your figure is your First Amendment 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 data.

Williams, a restaurant assistant, was being held without bond in the Duval County Jail Wednesday morning pending his initial court appearance. His father did not immediately return a message left on his cellphone, and court records did not list an attorney for Williams. The minimum sentence for assaulting an elder in Florida is three years in prison. Maximum 15.

Key said the seven juveniles with Williams do not appear to have committed any crimes, but the investigation is ongoing.

Duval County Democratic Party Chairman Daniel Henry said Williams committed a “disturbing act of intimidation.”

“Violence and intimidation have no place in our democratic process. The Duval County Democratic Party supports those who seek to express their views peacefully and without fear of reprisal. We encourage all citizens to continue to participate in civic activities, respectfully and legally,” Henry said in a statement.

Dean Black, chairman of the Duval Republican Party, thanked police for arresting Williams, but said in a statement that Democrats and others were to blame for the angry political atmosphere surrounding the election.

“In an environment of high political tension, with President Trump surviving two assassination attempts and Republican supporters being derided as Nazis and called ‘trash’ by Joe Biden, we call for calm,” Black said.

President Biden, speaking Tuesday about a comedian at a Trump rally over the weekend who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash,” said, “The only trash I see there is his supporters.”

The 19-year-old Pennsylvania man who shot Trump at a July rally, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican but made a $15 donation to a Democratic group. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper.

Ryan Routh, who was accused last month of stalking Trump on his Florida golf course in hopes of shooting him, was once a registered Democrat but says he voted for Trump in 2016. He is now a registered independent. He also wrote a book calling on Iran to kill Trump.

TERRY SPENCER, Associated Press