Miami man arrested for threatening to kill ‘hundreds of people’ if not given protection from Jewish people

MIAMI — A man was arrested earlier this month for allegedly threatening to kill “hundreds of people” in a building and at a concert with an automatic weapon if he didn’t receive FBI and CIA protection from Jewish people.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the Federal Bureau of Investigations Joint Terrorism Task Force and the City of Miami Police Department announced in a Friday press release that they had arrested Maximo de la Cruz, 52, for threats/extortion.

According to the press release, the FBI Miami field office received a phone call from de la Cruz around 10:10 a.m. on Oct. 9. During the recorded call, he said that “a lot of people are going to die, like hundreds of people, shot dead they’re going to get executed.” Additionally, he continued making threatening statements to the FBI operator that he has been “abused, manipulated, and kidnapped by the Jewish people and was going to walk up in a building and shoot up everybody with an automatic weapon.” Also, he specifically stated that he was going to use an “automatic weapon” to shoot “hundreds of people” at a concert, the press release stated.

According to the press release, de la Cruz then told the operator that he has been contacting the FBI on “numerous occasions” over the years to report a crime and get protection from harassment. During the course of the nearly 15-minute call, the operator asked de la Cruz why he wanted to hurt so many people, he responded “because that has got to be the way that you get attention.”

“What I want resolved is that I need protection. From a very from… from… from… from somebody in the government of the United States because I pay my taxes. I pay taxes and I need some kind of protection,” de la Cruz continued.

He continued saying that he wanted the police to provide him with protection, adding that “either from the police… uh local police from the City of Miami or from the FBI… from the CIA from somebody. I need some kind of protection from this harassment.”

According to the press release, de la Cruz continued to state that this has been happening to him for years and it has to be with the Jewish people.

“Of course, any threat of mass violence or terrorism is extremely alarming especially during this difficult time of heightened awareness that we are experiencing,” Rundle stated. “My top priority is ensuring the safety of every human being. Threatening to use violence will never be tolerated.”

The Miami-Dade Jewish community and law enforcement across South Florida have been on high alert for the past week as the former chief of Hamas called for a “global day of rage” on Friday in the wake of the multi-fronted attack by the terrorist organization on the country of Israel last Saturday.

This was not the first time that de la Cruz was accused of antisemitism. According to a September 2014 CBS News Miami report, he was charged with criminal mischief on a place of worship after he allegedly defaced the sign of a Miami Beach synagogue with a swastika, the letters “KKK,” the number 33 and various other words.