She went to work and did not come home.
At 7:19 in the morning on April 2, officers in Fort Myers, Florida responded to calls about a woman struck with a hammer outside a gas station. When they arrived, she was lying on the ground, unresponsive, not breathing. She has not been publicly identified, but a member of Fort Myers' Bangladeshi community told a local television station she was one of their own — a store clerk, a loving mother, devoted to her faith.
The man accused of killing her is Rolbert Joachin, 40, described by authorities as a Haitian national living in the United States without legal status. Surveillance footage from the gas station captured the attack in full. It shows Joachin striking a parked car with what appears to be a hammer, then turning toward the woman as she exits the store and approaches him. He hits her in the head immediately. He strikes her six more times — head and torso — before stepping over her body and walking away. The Department of Homeland Security shared the footage publicly. So did President Trump.
Through that same surveillance footage, police identified Joachin, who they say had prior interactions with law enforcement. He was arrested later that same day. He now faces charges of murder, criminal mischief, and felony property damage. He is being held without bond in Lee County and is scheduled to be arraigned on May 4. CNN reached out to his attorneys but received no response.
Outside the gas station where she died, friends and neighbors have built a small memorial. M.D. Islam, a member of the local Bangladeshi community, spoke to affiliate WBBH about the grief spreading through their circle. "Everybody, right now, is sad," he said. "Not only me, not only my Bangladeshi community. All of us people, also around the world. They are very sad to see this news."
That grief, however, quickly became entangled in a much larger political argument. On Thursday evening, Trump posted the surveillance footage to Truth Social, calling the killing a direct consequence of immigration policies under former President Joe Biden. He referred to Joachin as an "animal" and directed pointed criticism at Temporary Protected Status, a humanitarian program that had shielded Haitians from deportation.
According to DHS, Joachin first entered the United States in August 2022. A federal immigration judge issued a removal order against him that same year, but the government subsequently granted him Temporary Protected Status — a designation that expired in 2024. The Trump administration has been working to end TPS protections for more than 350,000 Haitians, but those efforts were blocked earlier this year by a federal judge who found that DHS had not adequately reviewed whether conditions in Haiti were safe enough for mass return. The administration has since appealed to the Supreme Court.
Trump's post leaned hard into that legal fight. He called TPS "a massively abused and fraudulent program" and argued that the killing should compel federal judges to stop blocking his immigration enforcement agenda. "This one killing should be enough," he wrote, directing his frustration at what he called "Radical Judges" impeding his administration's policies.
The president's decision to share graphic footage of a woman's death — footage showing the moment of impact, the fall, the repeated blows — drew immediate attention, both for its content and for what it represents as a political tactic. Trump has used individual violent crimes committed by immigrants as recurring focal points throughout his political career, framing them as proof that border enforcement must be absolute. Critics argue the approach distorts the broader statistical picture of immigration and crime; supporters say it gives a human face to what they see as policy failure.
What is not in dispute is what happened outside that Fort Myers gas station on a Wednesday morning: a woman went to work and did not come home. Her community is mourning. A man is in custody awaiting trial. And the circumstances of her death are now part of a national argument that will outlast any single verdict.
The arraignment is set for May 4. The Supreme Court's consideration of the TPS dispute continues. Both proceedings will be worth watching.
Notable Quotes
Everybody right now is sad — not only my Bangladeshi community, but all of us people, also around the world.— M.D. Islam, member of the Bangladeshi community in Fort Myers, speaking to WBBH
This one killing should be enough for these Radical Judges to stop impeding my administration's immigration policies.— President Donald Trump, posting on Truth Social
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What's the actual legal status of the man accused here — was he supposed to have been deported?
Yes, a federal immigration judge ordered him removed in 2022, the same year he arrived. But the government then granted him Temporary Protected Status, which kept him here legally until that designation expired in 2024.
So he was in a kind of bureaucratic limbo after TPS expired?
That's the implication, though the record on what happened between 2024 and the attack in April 2026 isn't fully spelled out in what's been made public.
Why is Trump sharing the actual footage rather than just describing the crime?
The footage makes it visceral in a way that a description doesn't. It's a deliberate choice — the same logic behind naming crimes after victims, or holding up photos at rallies. The goal is emotional immediacy, not information.
Is there something different about this case compared to others he's highlighted?
The timing matters. The administration is actively before the Supreme Court trying to end TPS for Haitians. This case hands them a concrete, emotionally charged example to point to while that legal fight is live.
What about the victim herself — she seems almost secondary in the political coverage.
That's a real tension in the story. She hasn't even been publicly named. Her community is grieving quietly while her death is being used as an argument in a national policy debate she had no part in.
Does the political framing change anything about how the criminal case proceeds?
Probably not directly. He's charged, he's held without bond, he'll be arraigned in May. The courts move on their own track. The politics happen in parallel.
What would it take for the Supreme Court to reinstate TPS deportations for Haitians?
The administration needs the Court to find that the lower court overstepped in blocking DHS. It's a high bar, but the current Court has shown willingness to give the executive branch wide latitude on immigration.
And if TPS is terminated, what happens to those 350,000 people?
They'd lose their legal protection and become subject to removal. Many have been here for years, have children born here, built lives. The human scale of that is enormous, which is exactly why the legal fight has been so fierce.