TAMPA, Fla. (Court TV) — A Florida man is facing a list of charges after allegedly injecting chemicals into his neighbor’s apartment.
Xuming Li, seen here in a booking photo, is accused of injecting chemicals into his neighbor’s apartment in Tampa, Florida. (Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
Xuming Li was arrested on June 27 and charged with aggravated stalking, battery on a law enforcement official and three counts of battery with a dispersed chemical agent.
In a criminal complaint obtained by Court TV, police said that Li used a syringe filled with liquid which he injected into a neighbor’s doorway on multiple occasions. Police said that surveillance video captured two of the incidents.
The victims, identified as Umar Abdullah, his wife and his 10-month-old daughter, are neighbors of the suspect. Police said that all three suffered shortness of breath and eye and skin irritation. Li is charged with battery on a law enforcement officer because a police officer responding to investigate came into contact with the substance and suffered skin irritation.
According to the New York Times, Li was enrolled in a chemistry Ph.D. program at the University of South Florida and had been making noise complaints about the victims for more than a year.
In an interview with WFLA, Abdullah said that he installed a hidden camera in a plant outside of his doorway after a noxious smell in his home kept returning without explanation.
“Even during war, the worst enemies do not attack the opponent, the other party, with chemicals,” Umar Abdullah, told the station. “A neighbor, who supposedly, who’s seemingly a regular guy, was coming and harming us with chemicals. And that was very scary for us.”
Police said that Hazmat testing at the scene revealed the chemical substance to be a mixture of Methadone and Hydrocodone.
Li’s next court date is a disposition hearing on Dec. 5.
