An undocumented Haitian man has been charged with murder after repeatedly striking a woman with a hammer outside a convenience store in Florida last week, the latest immigration case thrust into the national spotlight by President Donald Trump.
Rolbert Joachin, 40, is in custody and accused by authorities of killing the woman, who has not been publicly identified, during an interaction at a gas station in Fort Myers on April 2, according to court documents.
The victim was working as a store clerk at the gas station, according to the documents. A man who knew the victim told CNN affiliate WBBH she was a member of the Bangladeshi community in Fort Myers.
In a post on Truth Social Thursday evening, Trump shared shocking surveillance footage of the killing, calling it the result of immigration policies under former President Joe Biden and reiterated inflammatory rhetoric associating immigrants with crime. Trump’s amplification of the video is the latest in a yearslong campaign to use certain killings as apparent evidence for stricter border enforcement.
“The video of her brutal slaying is one of the most vicious things you will ever see,” Trump said in his post, referring to the suspect as an “animal” and criticizing humanitarian protections previously granted for Haitians.
Gruesome video of the interaction, also shared online by the Department of Homeland Security, shows a man repeatedly hitting the hood and sides of a car parked in the gas station’s parking lot with an object – an apparent hammer – in his hand.
A woman is seen exiting the store and approaching the man, appearing to speak to him, and the man turns and walks towards her, according to the video, which is then lightly blurred due to the graphic nature of the attack.
He immediately strikes the woman in the head with the object in his right hand, forcing her to fall backwards onto the store’s sidewalk. He is then seen striking her another six times on her head and torso before walking over her body and away from the scene.
Police received calls around 7:19 a.m. notifying them that a woman had been hit with a hammer, according to court documents. When multiple officers responded to the scene, they found the woman unresponsive lying on the ground and she “was not breathing,” according to the documents.
Through the surveillance video, authorities identified the suspect, who they said had previous interactions with police, and were able to arrest him later in the day, the documents say.
A still from a video, shared by President Donald Trump and DHS, that purportedly shows an undocumented man repeatedly striking a woman with a hammer. Department of Homeland Security