A West Boca man filed a federal lawsuit against the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, claiming he was wrongfully arrested last year after he, while holding a gun, detained a 14-year-old boy who tried a ding-dong ditch prank at his home.
Just before 8 p.m. Oct. 16, 2025, Santiago Cairo, 41, left his home in the 6300 block of Boca Circle to walk his two dogs. While Cairo was out, three teenage boys came to his front door. Two of the boys banged on his door while one stood in the dark front yard nearby. After the two knocked, they all ran away, home surveillance cameras Cairo posted publicly on YouTube this week show. The teens’ faces are blurred in the video.
About two minutes later, Cairo’s cameras showed one of the boys, wearing dark clothes and a hoodie concealing his face, walk from the backyard to Cairo’s front door with what appeared to be a flashlight in his hand. The boy appeared to lean toward Cairo’s front door. At that moment, Cairo returned to his home and saw him, the video showed.
Just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 16, 2025, Santiago Cairo’s home surveillance cameras recorded a dark figure at his front door, according to videos Cairo posted publicly on YouTube. (Screenshot of Santiago Cairo home surveillance footage)
Cairo then called 911, reporting the teens were trying to break into homes in the neighborhood. He went inside, grabbed his Glock 43X and found one of the boys hiding near his backyard a few hundred feet away from his home, the videos and court records show. For about five minutes, Cairo repeatedly ordered the 14-year-old to get on his knees and stay on the ground as he held his gun and spoke with a 911 dispatcher until deputies arrived.
The dispatcher asked Cairo, “You’re not pointing [the gun] at him anymore, right?”
“No, I was never pointing it at him,” Cairo replied. “It’s always at the ground.”
By the end of the night, Cairo was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car and arrested on a charge of aggravated assault with a firearm. Prosecutors decided not to file the charge against Cairo a month later, explaining in a one-sentence memo previously shared with the South Florida Sun Sentinel: “Although there was probable cause to make an arrest, the evidence cannot prove all legally required elements of the crime alleged and is insufficient to support a criminal prosecution.”
Cairo filed the lawsuit in federal court in August and is representing himself. The Sheriff’s Office and five of the deputies who responded to the call are named individually as defendants.
In his complaint, Cairo alleges the probable cause affidavit for his arrest “omitted and misrepresented material exculpatory facts” that deputies knew at the time, including that one neighbor who witnessed Cairo detaining the boy told deputies he “can’t say he pointed [the gun] at him” and that the boy’s mom told deputies the incident was “the boy’s fault” when asked if she wanted to pursue charges against Cairo after she arrived at the scene.
The Sun Sentinel is not identifying the boy because he is a minor. He is identified only by his initials in Cairo’s complaint.
Cairo maintains throughout the complaint he did not point his gun at the boy during the encounter and that he was reporting a suspected burglary, not children playing a prank.
A deputy asked the boy if Cairo pointed the gun at him. The boy replied: “… He has either the gun pointed to the ground or a little bit to my feet,” body-worn camera video Cairo obtained through public records requests and posted online showed.
The deputy then asked the boy “at that point, how scared were you?”
“I’m really scared,” he said. “At one point, he told me, ‘Don’t make me get aggressive with you,’ and at that point, he points the gun at me,” the video showed.
As Cairo was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, he told a deputy questioning him, “I thought somebody was trying to break into my house and trying to rob me,” the body-worn camera video showed.
Later in the questioning, the deputy told Cairo: “… The problem that I have is, you’re 500 feet away from where your house is and you’re holding a juvenile at gunpoint for absolutely no reason that we know of right now, besides you thinking that he pulled on your doorhandle.”
The deputies who are defendants and the Sheriff’s Office have not yet filed responses to the allegations. The Sheriff’ Office does not comment on pending litigation, Teri Barbera, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, said in an email.
Cairo emphasized when speaking with the Sun Sentinel this week that the boy told deputies he believed the gun was a BB gun or an airsoft gun rather than a real one.
“At that point, the detective should have immediately released me upon him hearing those words,” Cairo said.