According to witnesses on the ground, the UCF Police Department has torn down the posters of kidnapping victims across UCF’s campus, and threatened students who placed them with criminal mischief charges.
The posters, placed overnight on Wednesday by volunteers, list the information of kidnapping victims and are a common sight throughout the United States and the rest of the world.
Posters are generally not removed from UCF’s campus locations. One can find numerous examples on campus of non-commercial and commercial advertising. Even in instances where kidnapping victim posters were displayed in the same areas as other posters, only the kidnapping victims’ posters were removed.
Here is an example of a removed kidnapping poster, alongside multiple other posters not removed by UCF PD:
Sources on the ground additionally state that UCF PD claims not to have received any complaints regarding these posters — meaning they were torn down on their own initiative.
It is apparently UCF policy to prohibit the display of posters anywhere on campus without prior approval. It is doubtful that UCF has given approval to many, if not most, of the posters which remain after UCF PD’s actions. Examples of posters which remain include those promoting Knight Library, a nightclub and bar, as well as those promoting “get rich quick” scams. Regardless, threatening to charge Jews with “criminal mischief” without charging students who make death threats against those Jews is unscrupulous at best.
The threats issued by UCF PD against UCF Jews — which included student conduct referrals (which can lead to academic consequences) as well as the aforementioned misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief — were later reduced to warnings, although the posters continued to be torn down well into the day.
This behavior follows other instances of UCF institutions behaving, either unintentionally or otherwise, in antisemitic ways. It also follows a complete lack of action from both UCF administration and UCF PD regarding death threats against Jews. It can be inferred that UCF PD feels posters of kidnapping victims are more of a threat to the campus community than endorsements of violence against Jews, who constitute 10% of the campus population.
UCF Jewish Monitor has filed a public records request to learn more. We will keep you posted on this developing situation.