TAMPA BAY, Fla. (Bay News 9) – A Florida man is facing charges after police say he may have been attempting to poison his neighbors by injecting chemicals under the front door of their apartment.
Police say undercover video shows 36-year-old Xuming Li allegedly sticking a syringe under his neighbors’ front door and injecting a liquid into the Tampa Bay apartment.
Umar Abdullah, 36, lives inside that apartment with his wife and 1-year-old daughter. He says for more than a month, a chemical smell in their home was making his family sick. The symptoms included a headache worse than a migraine, nausea, shortness of breath, drowsiness and hair loss.
Suspicious of the odor, Abdullah hid a camera inside a plant facing his front door. He says he was shocked to capture Li, his downstairs neighbor, on video.
“We never expected anyone doing something, a neighbor who we knew by face at least for a year, so we were horrified. We were shaking,” Abdullah said.
Abdullah says he had been having a disagreement with Li over noise complaints that started shortly after his daughter was born.
After seeing the video, he called police, who sent out the hazmat team to investigate. The team found methadone and hydrocodone when they tested the liquid, according to an arrest affidavit.
“If you look at him, he’s holding his breath, so he knows the hazardous nature of this chemical,” Abdullah said.
Li was arrested in June on six charges, including multiple counts of battery, aggravated stalking and dispersing a chemical agent. He was a doctorate student in the University of South Florida’s chemistry department and was enrolled in the summer session.
He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, according to court records.
Abdullah says the ordeal has left his family shaken, and they’re now scared to make any noise whatsoever.
“Right now, I am afraid to live in any upper floors. I still believe there are not too many persons like him, but still, it’s like a trauma,” he said. “Whenever we accidentally drop our phone, we get shaken because what if, again, someone comes and just harms us?”
Li was released on bond two days after his arrest. His next court date is scheduled for December.