MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida International University student has been suspended indefinitely after he was accused of making a threat toward the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU in Miami Beach, university officials confirmed on Friday.
Authorities said Oscar Aguayo, 21, told his girlfriend that he planned to "raise havoc" Thursday during an event at the museum.
"(He said,) 'Are you going or not? Don't go, I'm going to target this place,' something like that. That's what I heard," Brian Siegal, of the American Jewish Committee Miami-Broward, said.
Police said Aguayo' statements did not rise to the level of a prosecutable threat.
"We always feel that constant vigilance is important because we know there are extremist in the community, we know that the Jewish community in particular tends to be a target and those threats can come from a variety of different places," Siegal said.
FBI agents and Miami-Dade police were involved in the initial investigation. Police said they found Aguayo in class at the Modesto Maidique Campus on Southwest Eighth Street and detained him.
Miami-Dade police's bomb squad inspected Aguayo's white Honda Accord at FIU's Blue Garage and Miami Beach police officers searched the museum at 301 Washington Ave. Authorities deemed that both locations were safe.
Ariel Roman-Harris, a spokesman for the Israeli consulate general office in Miami, said the threat prompted their decision to cancel their Thursday night event at the museum as a precaution.
The event was meant to commemorate the 100 years of the pivotal Balfour Declaration, a 1917 statement by the British supporting the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. It was organized in partnership with FIU's Global Jewish and Middle East studies programs, the Consulate General of the United Kingdom and the American Jewish Committee.
The AJC said it hopes to reschedule the event in the coming weeks.
"These threats don't seem to be going away, and I think we think we want to stand strong against them, which is why we want to reschedule this event that had to be postponed," Siegal said.