A Florida man has been accused of terrorizing his Iraqi neighbors by breaking into their home before threatening that “Trump will handle it” if he couldn’t get them to leave the neighborhood, authorities said.
David Allen Boileau, 58, was arrested in Holiday on Tuesday following an incident the day before in which Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said he threw nails and screws into the family’s driveway on Pinehurst Drive in an attempt to flatten the tires of a relative’s car, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“The US needs to rid the country of all of them,” Boileau said during the incident, according to a Pasco County Sheriff’s Office arrest report. “He also stated we’ll get rid of them one way or another.”
Boileau, who had just recently moved into the neighborhood, took his alleged dislike of Middle Easterners to new depths on Tuesday when a neighbor told deputies he saw him approach the family’s home and yell into the windows.
The neighbor then spotted Boileau walk out the family’s front door before the neighbor started recording video of the incident and called authorities.
Boileau later admitted to a responding deputy that he went into the family’s home via an unlocked door before walking out and rifling through their mailbox. The Iraqi family, which includes four young children, was not home at the time, but when the female homeowner returned she told deputies a wallet containing credit cards, gift cards and other valuables was stolen from the residence, according to the report.
Boileau denied taking anything from the family, who had lived at the address without incident for the last three years and didn’t have any prior interactions with Boileau, the report states.
“David uttered several statements of his dislike for people of Middle Eastern descent prior to being read his Miranda Warning and after being read his Miranda Warning as well,” according to the report. “The defendant made statements of the US needing to get rid of people with Middle Eastern descent and they don’t belong here. He also stated if he doesn’t get rid of them, Trump will handle it.”
Nocco told reporters during a news conference Wednesday that he’s now working with state authorities and FBI officials to see if hate crime charges are warranted.
“We have to send a clear message out there,” Nocco told reporters. “And that message is it doesn’t matter your race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation — the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is going to uphold the laws and make sure everyone is safe.”
Boileau, who was identified as unemployed on the arrest report, is now facing a charge of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. He also had an outstanding arrest warrant for petty theft in Highlands County, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
“He thinks we’re bad people,” a relative of the family told WFTS. “I know there’s some bad people from the Middle East, that’s why we’re here.”
The victim’s sister, meanwhile, told the station that the homeowner had worked as an interpreter for the US Army in Iraq and was living in the United States legally.
“That’s why we came here, because our life was in danger,” she told WFTS.