A Haitian immigrant has died after allegedly packing his vehicle with propane tanks and ramming the car into a building where his ex-girlfriend lived.
Carl Philbert, a 31-year-old Haitian immigrant, was allegedly targeting his ex-girlfriend, who lives in one of the bottom-floor apartments in the building, when he plotted the explosion attack, according to Fort Pierce police spokesperson Ed Cunningham.
According to police, Philbert showed up to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment earlier in the day and was upset about something inside the apartment. That’s when police said he loaded up propane tanks in his vehicle and took off for the building.
“He intended to do damage,” Cunningham told local media. He raced his car into this apartment where five people were, intending to kill them, blow the place up or create some kind of havoc.”
Everyone inside the apartment, including a 3-year-old child, was able to escape, with the woman’s daughter saying the Haitian national was driving “full force” towards their building.
“My mother was cooking,” the daughter of Philbert’s ex-girlfriend told local media. “She saw him, like, coming full force at our living room, and she was trying to warn us as we were sitting on the couch, but it was too late and he had already come in and hit the window. And he drove through our living room.”
“As soon as he came in through the window, I jumped up and grabbed my son, ran out the back door with him,” the girl continued. “I got my mother and my grandmother and everyone out of the house.”
The family’s neighbor, Chris Garcia, said he was determined to get his family out of their apartment after the Haitian national crashed his vehicle.
“My wife grabbed our baby girl and went to the bedroom, and both of the kids were running to the back and I saw that and I was like oh heck no,” Garcia said. “The building is bursting into flames. So I told them, ‘No it’s on fire, we’ve got to get out of here.’”
Despite trying to cause harm to his ex-girlfriend and her family, Philbert was the only fatality at the scene, which is still being investigated by Fort Pierce police and the fire department.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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