FIU Student Arrested in Miami After Alleged Bomb Threat in WhatsApp Group Chat

A Florida International University student was arrested in Miami after police said she posted messages in a WhatsApp group chat that threatened violence tied to a scheduled campus event, a case that quickly rattled students and prompted university officials to describe the situation as a credible threat.

Gabriela Saldana, 23, was taken into custody near campus and charged with making a written threat to kill or do bodily harm, according to an arrest report cited by NBC Miami. The alleged threat was connected to an event set for Friday, April 10, 2026, at FIU, and police said the incident location was listed as the university's campus.

Local reports said the messages were posted in a WhatsApp chat involving about 215 students who were discussing an event at FIU's Ocean Bank Convocation Center. One of the messages referenced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and asked him to "drop some bonbons" on Capstone students at the venue. The same report said police told the court Saldana also wrote that "there is going to be a bomb in the Ocean Bank Convocation Center" and blamed another student in the chat.

According to NBC Miami, investigators said Saldana admitted sending the messages. The arrest report states she made the threat "in a manner in which it may be viewed by another person" and that it was intended as a true threat.

The case moved quickly into bond court, where Judge Mindy Glazer made clear that even if the defense tries to frame the message as a joke, the court saw enough to support probable cause at this stage. WSVN reported that Saldana herself wrote in the chat, "I wrote a dumb joke that should not have been made." The judge set bond at $5,000. WSVN also reported that while prosecutors pursued an enhancement tied to prejudice, Glazer said she did not find probable cause for that element.

FIU, in a statement, said the student had been arrested for making "a credible and imminent threat of violence" at a planned university event. The university said the suspect identified a specific date, time and venue, and added that there was no further threat to the campus community.

The arrest lands at a tense moment for FIU, which was already under scrutiny after a separate WhatsApp controversy earlier this year involving racist and antisemitic messages linked to student political circles. That earlier episode had already put unusual attention on how private group chats at the university can spill into public crisis.

In this latest case, the legal question is likely to turn on whether the messages were protected speech, a bad joke or a prosecutable threat. For now, though, FIU police and the court appear to be treating the matter as serious enough that nobody on campus was laughing.