A Palestinian student was arrested under Florida’s new hate crimes law. Then the case collapsed

A Palestinian student gasped as he watched his fellow students at the University of Central Florida (UCF) plant hundreds of miniature flags of Israel in the ground right on the university’s campus this year.

Say Asi21, of Jacksonville, confronted the students and accused them of supporting a genocide that killed part of his family. The heated argument lasted about a minute in an area where students often hold signs or sign in at lunchtime.

As Asi left, he said something to the students that ruined his school career and made him the first known student at a public university to be arrested for violating a new state law.

“You won’t be here when I come back and shoot you,” Asi said. According to the UCF police report.

The Jewish students ran to find a nearby policeman.

“I’m Israeli,” one student told UCF police. “I definitely feel more like a target here.”

Asi, who did not own a weapon, sounded remorseful as he spoke to the police officer who witnessed the altercation in January.

“The defendant apologized for his behavior and said he knew he should not have made that threat. The defendant said his emotions got the better of him and he asked to go and apologize to the students he threatened,” the police report said. “The defendant said he was tired of seeing students on campus justifying the killing of Palestinians.”

Asi, a former model student at UCF, was arrested on January 23 on three counts of intimidation by making a credible threat to a person wearing a religious object.

Asi’s arrest made headlines in Orlando, and nearly 30,000 spectators watched the Bodycam footage on YouTube.

“Were you afraid for your life, that something could actually happen?” the police officer asked the pro-Israel students, according to the video, which Law & Crime.

“When someone tells you they are going to shoot you, you generally fear for your life,” one student responded.

“Especially after… he said he supports Hamas,” another student seemed to say.

Last year, Florida lawmakers passed HB 269which was part of a series of reforms that included the introduction of the charge of religious threat, on which Seif was arrested. The law expanded on already existing penalties, making it a hate crime and a serious crime to threaten or harass someone who displays religious or ethnic symbols.

HB 269 was passed the legislature and received unanimous support.

“With this law, we ensure that perpetrators who commit anti-Semitic acts and target religious groups or individuals are punished,” DeSantis said in a statement when he signed the measure during a trip to Israel in May last year.

Asi appears to be the first student at a public university in Florida to be arrested on the charge since the law was passed. The University of Florida, Florida State University and the other public universities in Florida have not arrested anyone since the law went into effect, the universities confirmed this week. (Florida A&M University and Florida Atlantic University did not respond to Florida Politics in time for this story.)

The criminal proceedings against Asi failed this spring.

The public prosecutor’s office decided not to press charges because the case could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, a spokesman said. Jason Gunn.

“The case raises several questions,” According to an SAO memo provided to Florida Politics as part of a public records request.

“All three victims state that they heard the defendant say something along the lines of, ‘You won’t be here when I come back and shoot you.’ This is more of a conditional threat. Furthermore, there is no indication that the defendant targeted these victims based on their religion or ethnicity. Rather, the defendant appears to have been angered by the victims’ stance and their support of Israel in the current conflict. Finally, as far as the credibility of the threat is concerned, no weapon was discovered on the defendant’s person or among his immediate possessions in his backpack. This case also received some media coverage.”

Although Asi had no criminal record and never went to prison, his life was turned upside down at UCF.

The university suspended him for the spring semester and placed him on probation for the fall 2024 semester, court records show. After prosecutors dropped the charges, UCF’s punishment remained in place.

Student privacy laws prevent UCF from commenting, a university spokesman said Courtney Gilmartinwho pointed out Florida Politics to his 95-page “Student Golden Rule” It describes the rights and responsibilities of students and the school’s procedures for disciplining students.

This month, Asi filed a petition in Orange County District Court to overturn his suspension and allow him to return to school.

In court documents, Asi accused UCF of violating its due process rights.

At a disciplinary hearing at UCF, a student testified that Asi’s actual statement was, “This won’t be here when I come back to shoot it.” According to court documents, Asi meant that he wanted to shoot the flags, not people.

The comments were “inappropriate,” Asi acknowledged in court documents, but they were made as he escaped an emotional situation and the Israeli students ultimately hung their flags anyway, he said.

Because of his suspension, the senior kinesiology student will not be able to finish his final spring semester in time to begin his doctoral program in physical therapy at UCF this summer.

“I don’t want to ruin my life,” Asi told UCF police, according to bodycam footage. “I’m not a political person.”

Asi’s lawyer declined to comment for this article.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has become a sensitive issue on university campuses across the country.

“It’s not like the 1960s, when protests shut down many or most college campuses, but it’s in the background,” said Roy GuttermanDirector of the Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University, while a recent panel of the Education Writers Association.

“This is a big global political problem. They still have to go to school, they still want to get good grades, they still want to graduate and get a job or go to a really good graduate school. Political engagement is just another element in their lives.”

Following a rally by pro-Palestinian students on the UCF campus, school board officials updated their policies Tuesday to explicitly prohibit camping on campus.

The board of trustees meeting was streamed live on YouTube and school officials said Wednesday You fix a technical error since most public comments were either muted or missing online.

“Your proposed changes will never limit us,” one student told school officials. according to Orlando Sentinel.

Post views: 0