ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. — A St. Lucie County man was arrested Monday after the sheriff's office said he posted threats against President Donald Trump on social media.
The agency said the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office SWAT Team, in partnership with the U.S. Secret Service, executed a search warrant at a home on Metzger Road near Fort Pierce.
The suspect, Kendal Aaron Todd, 42, was apprehended under an active warrant from St. Lucie County.
Investigators said Todd posted threatening messages on his public social media page, in which he expressed intentions to cause bodily harm to Trump.
"This investigation is being conducted in coordination with federal authorities, and further details will be provided as the case progresses," the sheriff's office said in a statement.
Todd faces charges of written threats to kill or do bodily harm. His bond is set at $500,000.
"This was obviously flagged by United States Secret Service," said Sgeriff Richard Del Torro. "We worked with them to obtain the arrest warrant and the search warrant today. Got there today again, the SWAT team was there. We were in full force. We're not messing around, obviously, with threats of suicide by cop and things like that, threats to our president. We weren't letting any taking any chances, and we're not going to put our deputies lives at risk. So it's a high risk situation."
The post has since been taken down, but in it, investigators say Todd starts off by declaring himself the President of the United States, this comes before he allegedly threatens to fight and kill the President on live television. Some parts of the threat are too disturbing to repeat.
WPTV's Michael Hoffman went searching for answers inside Todd's neighborhood.
Ann Cunningham has been Todd’s neighbor for years. She tells Hoffman she hasn’t had many interactions with him aside from the occasional greeting in passing. But she and others on the street Hoffman spoke with call him "unfriendly", a man who keeps to himself.
Cunningham says that she’s seen deputies attempt welfare checks on her neighbor’s home for weeks and saw a SWAT team had raided her neighbor’s house.
“He acts like a vampire," neighbor Ann Cunningham said. "Because he travels at night, you don't you don't see him during the day."
Cunningham was shocked to hear what Todd is accused of doing.
"A lot of people dislike Trump, but you know, you have to keep that to yourself," Cunningham said. "You don't go threaten people's lives,"
A sentiment that Sheriff Richard Del Torro shares.
"You know, no matter what political party you're on, violence and political arena is never the right thing," said Sheriff Del Toro. "And we've had attempts on our president's life before, and we're not taking any chances, and so we're going to investigate those. The full weight of the sheriff's office was going to investigate that."
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, this is the third person arrested in our area who is accused of making threats against the president. One suspect was arrested by West Palm Beach police in January, and another was apprehended by Palm Beach County deputies earlier this month.
