A Tampa man was caught injecting a harmful substance under his neighbor’s apartment door.
Authorities say the substance Xuming Li was seen injecting was an opioid chemical agent, NBC Miami reported.
Umar Abdullah and his pregnant wife moved to their new condo in Tampa in June of 2022. Shortly after their daughter was born. They say that’s when Li started complaining about the noise from their apartment.
Abdullah said Li would text him saying he couldn’t sleep and could hear the toilet seat being moved.
He said their text exchanges lasted for months. But it got strange after he and his family began to feel groggy, sick, and vomiting.
“I look at my daughter,” Abdullah told WFLA. “Her eyes were full of tears. She was not crying, but her eyes were full of tears.”
A Friend of his said she smelled chemicals one day while dropping off a package at their home while he and his family were on vacation.
When he returned he smelled it too and called an air conditioning company, a plumber, and his landlord, but no one could determine the source of the smell. He also called the fire department, but their tests didn’t reveal anything.
Still, he didn’t take no for an answer. And eventually, his mind went to his neighbor. Abdullah said he found a crack in the corner that a syringe could fit through and installed a hidden camera in the plant outside.
“Even during war, the worst enemies do not attack the opponent, the other party, with chemicals,” Abdullah told WFLA.
On a day when he said he noticed his daughter was sick again, he checked the hidden camera.
The video appeared to show his downstairs neighbor bending down in front of their front door, but the angle was not clear enough to tell what was going on.
“We were shaking,” Abdullah recalled. “We can’t imagine that he is coming and doing something.”
Abdullah then adjusted the hidden camera to capture the angle and waited until his daughter got sick again. He checked the footage and saw Li. This time, the video recorded him taking a syringe out, filling it with a liquid, then injecting the liquid into the crack in Abdullah’s doorframe.
“The first that came to my mind — my daughter and my wife,” Abdullah remembered. “They need to be safe.” He removed his family and called the police.
Li was arrested and charged with multiple felonies, including possession of a controlled substance and burglary.
According to a Tampa Police Department affidavit, a hazmat test found the “liquid “chemical agent” contained both methodone and hydrocodone, opioid pain medications.
Li’s arrest record listed him as a student at USF, but the school told the news outlet that he was a chemistry Ph.D. student but is no longer enrolled — his last semester was summer 2023.
Li is out on bond and his next hearing is December 5. He’s also facing lawsuits from Abdullah for domestic violence and the condo association for breach of contract.
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