Your friends sound very knowledgeable and well-informed on this topic.
Maybe they've had a client before who was on one side or the other of one of these types of cases.
Considering one of them is a secretary in the State Attorney's office for Miami-Dade County, you would be correct on that assumption.
That being said, I really don't see the difference between telling someone to their face that you're gonna beat their ass and texting it to them. A threat is a threat, regardless of how it's delivered, and it should be dealt with accordingly.