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On April 16 at about 9:25 a.m., the Plant City Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security Tampa acted on a search warrant for a house in Plant City across the street from Wilson Elementary School.
Wilson Elementary School sits in a good neighborhood with hard-working, salt-of-the-earth homeowners who are surprised something like this could happen there. Residents of the neighborhood were hesitant to discuss the situation and spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
One person who was near the scene at the time of the raid gave an account. “All of a sudden I heard a loud speaker and the man said, ‘Come out the front door with your hands up! Anyone who’s in this house come outside right now with your hands up!’ He repeated that three, four, five times. There were many, many police vehicles down the road and lots of officers. Police were outside of the house pointing their guns at the house. When the police announcement stopped, at the same time I heard the intercom at the school come on. On the intercom the person said to all the teachers they were going to lock in. There were also officers walking around the school like they were added security. About that time I heard a loud boom and smoke started coming out of the house. I figured well, maybe that was to get them out. After that things got kind of quiet.”
Wilson Elementary School initiated a lock in rather than a lock down. In a lock in, students stay in place. In a lock down, students move to different areas to shelter. “We were notified law enforcement would be serving an arrest warrant in the area and additional school Guardians were in place,” Kayla Forcucci, Principal of Wilson Elementary School said. “There was good communication between officers and our Guardians. Our safety was never in jeopardy. All of the students fell into line doing what they have been trained to do in drills. I am super proud of them.” The lock in ended at 9:51 a.m.
The law enforcement action came about after Customs and Border Protection flagged a package from China that contained toy cars that disguised 63 glock switch parts that are enough to make 21 glock switches. These switches are used to convert a semi-automatic (when the trigger is pulled once the firearm shoots one bullet) handgun, to fully automatic (when the trigger is pulled once the firearm shoots many bullets). Possessing these devices is illegal. The package was addressed to a Plant City apartment which police say is connected to Philip Valeriani, a resident of the house law enforcement raided. They suspect him of importing, making, and distributing those glock switches.
Residents noted that in the last two years there has been police activity at the house, in most cases very late at night. In May 2023, PCPD seized a 3D printer from Valeriani that detectives believe he was using to make these glock switches. After the seizure, in a change from normal, 55 packages from overseas came to Valeriani. Residents also observed the house has recently been under law enforcement surveillance. As of the last information released by Homeland Security, no glock switches were found in the house.
However, law enforcement did find a machine gun, gun parts, drugs, a bullet proof vest, a Drug Enforcement Administration raid jacket and a Customs and Border Protection raid jacket. Law enforcement arrested Valeriani who is facing charges including possession of a machine gun and drug trafficking.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” a witness said. “The next day they had a lot of goings on in the house. People were coming and going throughout the day. By the end of the day there was a lot of furniture and belongings in the front of the house out to the roadside. And someone put a new roof on the house the very next day.”