An 18-year-old wielding a machete is accused of threatening Harris-Walz supporters canvassing near an early voting site in Florida with a group of seven other teenagers. Caleb James Williams was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly “brandished a machete in an aggressive, threatening posture over his head” towards two women, aged 71 and 54, in Neptune Beach, the city’s police chief said. “The investigation revealed that the group arrived to protest and antagonize the opposing political side,” Neptune Beach Police Chief Michael Key said of the teenagers at a press conference.
Key said the teens pulled up to a local library serving as an early voting location around 4 p.m. and “immediately started antagonizing the opposing political side.
” Williams was the oldest in the group, while the other seven are still minors between 16 and 17 years old. The 18-year-old was arrested on charges of aggravated assault on a person 65 years of age or older and improper exhibition of a firearm or dangerous weapon. The younger teens’ actions did not appear to “cross the threshold” for criminal charges, though the investigation is not over and charges could be recommended later, Key said.
The right to free expression and protest “goes out the window the moment you raise a machete over your head in a threatening manner,” Key said, expressing his own anger over what happened. “To say I’m disturbed is an understatement,” he said. Early voting at the library was not disrup.