Parents and guardians were asked to pick up students from the schools at special designated areas.
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Officials say it was a tough decision but the safety of students and employees was their main concern.
Mr Cortines added: “It was not to one school, two schools or three schools, it was many schools, not specifically identified, but there were many schools”.
“I think it’s important to take this precaution based on what has happened recently and what has happened in the past”, LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said. “I am not taking the chance of taking children any place into the building until I know it’s safe”. There are more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools in the district.
GWEN IFILL: Meanwhile, officials in New York City said they received a similar, if not the same, message.
The e-mailed threats to school officials on both coasts – which spoke of teams of jihadis using guns, bombs, and nerve gas to attack public schools – were largely identical in their wording, and both had been routed through a server in Frankfurt, Germany, apparently by the same person, officials said. Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff told the Los Angeles Times that the letter didn’t appear to be real.
Describing the threat, he said: “In reviewing it, the instigator of the threat may be a Homeland fan” he said. Bratton said he believed that email was “almost exactly the same” as the one sent to Los Angeles. Over and over, throughout the city and county, some students, teachers and staff had already left for school when the superintendent made his closure announcement.
The United States frequently has suffered many deadly school attacks, typically carried out by gunmen.
A voice message from the district said: “As a result of a threat received the superintendent has directed all schools to be closed today”.
Officials say the San Bernardino shooting influenced the decision to close all schools in the vast Los Angeles Unified School District after receiving a threat.
LAUSD shut down all campuses this morning because of a terrorist threat emailed to school board members, canceling classes for over 700,000 students. Some parents also got separate calls from the schools themselves.
The news conference was held shortly after 7 am local time, before the start of the school day for most children.
“It’s disappointing”, said Trinity Williams, a high school student who dropped off her younger sister at elementary school, only to find it was closed. “I assure you, as school police chief, that while our campuses are having a walk through as we speak, that none of our schools will be reopened until we have been completely satisfied”.
Lupita Vela, who has a daughter in the third grade and a son who is a high school senior, called the threat “absolutely terrifying” in light of the San Bernardino attack.
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Mayor Bill DeBlasio said the threat was “so generic so outlandish and posed to numerous school systems simultaneously, there were wording choices and other indicators that suggested a hoax and not anything that we could associate with Jihadist activities”.
