NEPTUNE BEACH, Fla. – Months after an 18-year-old was accused of antagonizing Kamala Harris supporters with a machete at a Neptune Beach polling precinct, the State Attorney’s Office said it would not be following through on charges against him.
Police said Caleb Williams was part of a group of eight teenagers, ages 16 to 18, who pulled up to the Beaches Branch Library during early voting in late October and confronted a group of women holding political signs.
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At the time, the police chief said Williams, a Fletcher High student, aggressively brandished a machete toward two women, ages 71 and 54 years old.
Williams was charged with aggravated assault, improper exhibition of a firearm or dangerous weapon, and voter intimidation and was ordered to stay at least 1,000 feet away from any polling locations unless he was voting himself.
But the State Attorney’s Office has since dropped all the charges against him.
The SAO said Williams had no criminal history.
They said he was with his friends “holding tools” and “loudly supporting their presidential candidate” at the polling location, but “no voters left the poll due to intimidation.”
The SAO said that although Williams' “act was ill advised and perhaps zealous” they don’t think the actions “rise to the level of voter intimidation.”
None of the other teens involved in the incident were charged.
News4JAX obtained the 911 call from a woman who watched when the teens pulled into the site and confronted the group.
“There’s a truck full of boys at the library pulling machetes out of their truck,” the frantic 911 caller said. “They got machetes.”
Press play in the video below to listen to the 911 call
One of the sign holders, who did not want to be identified, said Williams and the teens approached her.
“There was so many people around us watching this going on,” she said.
The woman described the sequence of events.
“We’re standing there waving our signs in support of the Harris campaign and this group of teenagers pulled up in a black SUV. They pulled into the parking lot the wrong way screaming and yelling, waving their Trump flags.”
Records show Williams is a registered Republican.
“They come down to us about as close as you are to me waving their flag in my face. We turned around and told them to go away. We’re going to call the police,” she said.
“He was trying to scare us, you know, trying to intimidate us. That’s against the law to intimidate voters,” she said.
