![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/-.jpg\" "\\"<p>23-year-old")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
23-year-old Gabriela Saldana<\/p>\n
What began as a message in a student chat has ended in an arrest, after police said a \u2018joke\u2019 crossed into a serious threat.A 23-year-old student at Florida International University (FIU) was taken into custody after sending messages in a WhatsApp group that authorities say posed a threat of violence at a campus event.Gabriela Saldana was arrested last week and later appeared in bond court, where her bail was set at $5,000. She faces a felony charge of making written threats to kill or cause bodily harm.According to police, the messages were posted in a group chat of around 215 students who were discussing an upcoming event at the university\u2019s Ocean Bank Convocation Center. <\/p>\n
Watch<\/p>\n
\u2018Decisive Response…\u2019: Iran Warns Of Retaliation After US Hijacks Iranian Ship In Gulf Of Oman In one message, Saldana wrote: \u201c[Israel\u2019s Benjamin] Netanyahu, if you can hear me, drop some bonbons for us Capstone students in Ocean Bank Convocation Center.\u201dAuthorities said she followed it with a more direct statement: \u201cThere is going to be a bomb in the Ocean Bank Convocation Center and it was going to be Jonathan\u2019s fault.\u201dThe messages were not treated as humour by the students in the group. Shortly after, Saldana responded in the chat: \u201cI wrote a dumb joke that should not have been made.\u201dPolice said she later admitted to sending the messages.During the court hearing, Judge Mindy S. Glazer acknowledged Saldana\u2019s claim that it was a joke, but said the legal standard depends on how the message is perceived.\u201cI can understand your position when you are saying this is a joke, but to an objective person, it\u2019s not a joke, and it would be enough for probable cause,\u201d the judge said. They added: \u201cI\u2019m not saying it\u2019s enough for beyond a reasonable doubt. I don\u2019t know if the state is going to be able to prove it in trial, but for purposes of this hearing, I believe there is enough for probable cause.\u201dThe university issued a statement confirming the arrest: \u201cAn FIU student has been arrested for making a credible and imminent threat of violence at a planned university event.\u201d It added that the suspect had identified a specific date, time and venue, and confirmed there was no ongoing threat to campus safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"23-year-old Gabriela Saldana What began as a message in a student chat has ended in an arrest, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[105912,28,30,2846,29,105909,105910,105911],"class_list":["post-238924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-violence-threat","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-international-university","tag-florida-news","tag-gabriela-saldana","tag-student-arrested-for-threat","tag-whatsapp-threat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}