Tampa police: Man arrested after allegedly injecting chemicals under neighbors front door
TAMPA -- Tampa police say undercover video shows 36-year-old Xuming Li Sticking a syring under his neighbors front door and injecting a liquid into the apartment.
36-year-old Umar Abdullah lives inside that apartment with his family a wife and young daughter.
Abdullah shows us how he hid a camera inside a plant facing his front door after becoming suspicious of an odor.
"I made a little hole here and I installed the camera." said Abdullah
Abdullah says for more than a month, the chemical smell in their apartment was making his family sick.
He says the symptoms included a headache worse than a migraine, nausea, shortness of breath, drowsiness and they began losing their hair.
Abdullah says he was shocked to capture his downstairs neighbor on video with a syringe.
"We never expected anyone doing something, a neighbor who we knew by face at least for a year, so we were horrified. We were shaking." said Abdullah
Abdullah says shortly after his one-year-old daughter was born, his neighbor began making noise complaints.
Li was captured on video.
"If you look at him he's holding his breath. So, he knows the hazardous nature of this chemical." said Abdullah
Abdullah called the Tampa police who sent out the hazmat team to investigate.
According to an arrest affidavit, the hazmat team found methadone and hydrocodone when they tested the liquid.
Li was arrested in June on six charges including aggravated stalking and dispersing a chemical agent.
Abdullah says the ordeal has left his family shaken and they're now scared to make any noise whatsoever.
"I am afraid to live in any upper floors. I still believe there's not too many people like him but still its like a trauma." said Abdullah
Whenever when we accidentally drop our phone we get shaken because what if again someone comes and just harms us?"
Li was a PHD student in the USF chemistry department and was enrolled in the summer session.
According to court records, Li has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
He was released from the Hillsborough County Jail two days after his arrest.
His next court date is scheduled for December.