In the video, the man, also wearing latex gloves, emerges from the woods, unfolds a note and disappears momentarily from view as he approaches the side of the building, before fleeing into the undergrowth again.
The footage was released by the Duval County Democratic Party after the note was found on Monday with the footage being retrieved on Thursday, said Daniel Henry, chairman of the county’s Democratic Executive Committee.
The note read: “We want blood. You lost the election. Redress our grievances now or we will. Be back later.”
It was signed: “We the people”. Printed on the back was a web page from the party’s site displaying the names and faces of its officers, according to The New York Times, including a photo of Henry.
“What really concerned me from the very beginning was he intentionally knew he could go through the woods without being easily identified and [without us knowing] frankly where he came from or what direction he came from. It looked like he put on the mask while he was still in the brush, he came up right on the road, and looked into the camera: he knew it was there,” Henry told local television station, First Coast News.
Henry said he handed the note and surveillance video to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Local news sources confirmed police were investigating the incident.
President Trump won Florida but narrowly lost Duval County, which is in the northeast of the state and includes Jacksonville. It is one of Florida’s swing counties.
The incident is the latest in a string of threats made against figures involved in the election process, following Joe Biden’s victory over President Trump at the polls in November.
Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, reported receiving death threats and said poll workers had been followed, after unsupported claims of voter fraud made against the state by President Trump. Raffensperger condemned the threats as ‘irrational, angry’ and ‘unpatriotic’.
Meanwhile, in Alabama, a police captain in the town of Flomaton was placed on administrative leave after writing on Facebook that Democrat voters need “a bullet in their skull for treason.”
And in November, a Colorado police officer resigned before his employment was terminated following a message he wrote on social media threatening violence against Democrats and BLM supporters.
It read: “Democrats you were scared of Trump now’s the true time to be afaird [sic]. We will do what you have done to our city’s and prevail p.s. please meet me at the battle grounds.”
