Florida International University: Police Arrest Student Over Jokes on WhatsApp

On April 15, 2026, Florida International University student Gabriela Saldana sent a series of WhatsApp messages to a group chat of FIU capstone students jokingly asking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to drop bombs (in one instance calling them “bonbons”) on a university-hosted event. The following day, FIU police arrested her, and she was charged with making terroristic threats. On April 23, FIRE wrote the university’s police chief and explained that the First Amendment requires public institutions to investigate whether the speaker understood their speech to be a threat before arresting them.