Less than two weeks after right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at a college campus in Utah, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Monday his office has launched an online portal where people can report anyone making threats of political violence.
“Lately, we’ve seen political violence more than ever,” Uthmeier said during a news conference at Valencia College’s west campus. “If you see something, say something. If there’s chatter out there that looks like a real threat, let us know, let us investigate, and let us try to save lives.”
The “Combat Violent Extremism” portal can be accessed at myfloridalegal.com/CVE. People can report videos, images or text messages that reference “violent extremism,” he said.
Uthmeier dismissed criticism that the portal could be used as a government tool to crack down on free speech.
“We respect the First Amendment more than anybody,” Uthmeier said. “We’re not going to be the cancel culture that we’ve seen for so long from the left. We’re not going to believe in silencing individuals. But there’s a big difference when it comes to a threat for violence, a call for violence. That is not protected by the First Amendment.”
Florida education commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said “a few number” of teachers “have celebrated and encouraged violence in schools.”
He did not provide examples. But Kamoutsas pointed to an elementary school teacher in Clay County who was suspended this month after social media posts on her account appeared to celebrate Kirk’s death on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University.
One of the posts read: “This may not be the obituary we were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me.” It was attached to a news article reporting the Kirk shooting.
Kamoutsas said security was increased at the school after more than 500 people complained about the teacher’s post. He added his office is seeking to revoke her educator’s license.
A day after Kirk’s killing, Kamoutsas warned school superintendents in a letter that teachers and education officials who post “disgusting comments” about Kirk would be investigated and reprimanded.
Robert Cassanello, an associate professor of history at the University of Central Florida and president of the United Faculty of Florida, a union that represents faculty at state universities, said the portal could be the latest effort to intimidate professors and other faculty.
“They are now trying to interfere with the private lives of faculty and employees,” he said.
He pointed to three Florida Atlantic University professors who were recently placed on administrative leave as the school investigates their social media activity.
Karen Leader, for example, a tenured art history professor at FAU, reposted commentary from other X users, including one that read: “In order to honor Charlie Kirk’s dying wish, Trump should release the Epstein files,” according to the Palm Beach Post.
Uthmeier said political rhetoric and activity has become more violent, though he was selective in describing examples.
“We’ve seen people that launch attacks in Catholic churches and schools, killing children,” he said Monday. “We saw the Pennsylvania governor’s house set ablaze by a pro-Palestinian radical. We’ve seen assaults on federal law enforcement officials over 1,000%. And of course, we all know what happened with Charlie Kirk. … We’ve got to be a country that wins with ideas and not with deadly violence.”
He also mentioned the June 2022 attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh by a transgender woman who now goes by the name of Sophie Roske.
But Uthmeier did not mention the June 2025 shooting deaths of Minnesota Democratic state Rep.Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot and seriously injured hours earlier.
The choice of which political violence to highlight, including claiming the Black Lives Matter protests “burned cities down,” echoes Vice President JD Vance’s statement on Kirk’s podcast last week, “While our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies, it is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-left.”
But the Anti-Defamation League’s annual reports on Murder and Extremism in the United States attributed the vast majority of political violence since 2013 to right-wing extremists, including the killing of a Lake County deputy in Eustis in August 2024. Islamist extremism ranked second, including the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando that killed 49.
Brad McVay, Florida’s statewide prosecutor, said the new portal will help the state Attorney General’s Office team with local law enforcement in stopping any future political violence.
“We believe that this is a matter of life and death,” he said Monday. “And we intend to treat it like that.”
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