A Palestinian student was arrested over new Florida hate crime law. Then the case fell apart

Photo courtesy University of Central Florida.

A Palestinian student snapped while watching his fellow University of Central Florida (UCF) students stick hundreds of miniature Israeli flags in the ground in the heart of the school’s campus this year.

Seif Asi, 21, of Jacksonville, confronted the students and accused them of supporting a genocide that killed some of his family. The heated argument lasted a minute or so in an area where students often hold signs or get sign ups at lunch time.

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

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

The Jewish students ran to find a nearby police officer.

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

Asi, who didn’t own a gun, sounded remorseful when he spoke to the police officer who witnessed the argument in January.

“The defendant apologized for his behavior and he stated he knew he should not have made the threat. The defendant said his emotions got the better of him and he requested to go and apologize to the students he threatened,” the police report said. “The defendant said he is tired of seeing students on campus defending the killing of Palestinian people.”

Asi, who had been a UCF honor roll student, was arrested Jan. 23 for three counts of intimidation by making a credible threat to a person wearing a religious item.

Asi’s arrest made the news in Orlando and nearly 30,000 watched the UCF Police’s body cam footage on YouTube.

“Were you guys in fear for your life that something would actually happen?” the police officer asked the pro-Israel students, according to the video obtained by Law & Crime.

“When someone tells you they’re going to shoot you, you generally feel some fear for your life,” one student answered.

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

Last year Florida lawmakers passed a HB 269, which was part of a series of reforms that included creating the religious threat charge Seif was arrested on. The bill expanded the penalties already on the books, making it a hate crime and felony to threaten or harass someone displaying religious or ethnic signs.

HB 269 sailed through the Legislature, winning unanimous support.

“Through this legislation, we are ensuring that perpetrators who commit acts of antisemitism and target religious groups or individuals will be punished,” DeSantis said in a statement when he signed the measure in May last year while on an Israel trip.

Asi appears to be the first Florida public university student to get arrested on the charge since the law passed. University of Florida, Florida State University and the other Florida public universities have not arrested anyone since the law took effect, the schools confirmed this week. (Florida A&M University and Florida Atlantic University did not respond timely to Florida Politics for this story.)

The criminal case against Asi fell apart this Spring.

The State Attorney’s Office decided not to pursue criminal charges because the case couldn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, said spokesman Jason Gunn.

“There are several issues with the case,” according to a SAO memo released to Florida Politics in a public records request.

“All three victims state that they heard the defendant state something along the lines of, ‘You won’t be here when I come back and shoot you.’ This is more along line of a conditional threat. Further, there is no indication that defendant was targeting these victims on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. Rather, it appears that the defendant was angry about the victims’ position and support of Israel in the current conflict. Finally, as it relates to the credibility of the threat, there was no weapon discovered on the person of the defendant or amongst his immediate possessions in his backpack. This case also received some media coverage.”

Asi didn’t end up with a criminal record or go to jail, but his life was upended at UCF.

The school suspended him for the Spring semester and put him on probation for the Fall 2024 term, court records show. After the State Attorney’s Office dropped the charges, UCF’s punishment remained in place.

Student privacy laws keep UCF from commenting, said school spokesperson Courtney Gilmartin, who pointed Florida Politics to its 95-page “Student Golden Rule” that describes student rights and responsibilities, as well as the school’s process for discipling students.

This month, Asi petitioned the Orange County Circuit Court to overturn his suspension and let him back into school.

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

At a UCF discipline hearing, one student testified what Asi actually said was, “This won’t be here when I come back to shoot it up” — which Asi said meant he wanted to shoot the flags, not people, according to court documents.

The comments were “inappropriate,” Asi acknowledged in court documents, but were uttered while walking away from an emotional situation and the Israeli students ultimately still put up their flags, he said.

With his suspension, the Kinesiology senior can’t finish his final Spring term in time to start his UCF doctoral physical therapy program this Summer.

“I don’t want to mess up my life,” Asi told UCF Police, according to the body cam footage. “I’m not a political person.”

Asi’s lawyer declined to comment for this story.

At college campuses across the country, the Israeli-Hamas conflict has become a hot-button issue.

“It’s not like the ‘60s, where protests shut down many or most university campuses, but it’s in the background,” said Roy Gutterman, Director of Syracuse University’s Tully Center for Free Speech, during a recent Education Writers Association panel.

“This is a major global political issue. They still have to go to class, they still want to have good grades, and they still want to graduate and get a job or go to a really good graduate school. Political activism is just one more element to their lives.”

After pro-Palestinian students rallied at UCF’s campus, school trustees updated a policy Tuesday to explicitly forbid camping on campus.

The trustees meeting was live streamed on YouTube and school officials said Wednesday they are fixing a technical glitch since most of the public comment portion was either muted or missing online.

“Your proposed amendments will never restrict us,” one student told school officials, according to the Orlando Sentinel.