At least nine New Jersey schools were evacuated or placed on lockdown Tuesday after someone phoned in a threat claiming to have planted bombs at the schools and threatening mass shootings, authorities said.
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“At this time there is no indication as to the validity of the threat”, Bracken said.
In November 2014, a series of bomb threats were made to schools in Hackensack, Garfield, Fort Lee, Englewood and Leonia, as well as Garfield’s police department.
On Friday, Mashpee, Bourne, Falmouth and Barnstable high schools all received phoned-in threats. He said these stricter protocols include daily bomb sweeps as well as the reinstatement of the clear or mesh bag policy.
The student body is being dismissed from the school “house-by-house”, Ryan said.
Officials say the threats mostly came in via voicemail.
While the safety measures are temporary in nature, they could continue if the threats resume, Fernandez said.
All of the school’s involved are located in Bergen County.
“We have to make split second decisions based on the threat, not knowing it is going on throughout the commonwealth”, Ryan said.
Fair Lawn High School and Leonia High School have also been evacuated.
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“Whether or not it’s a hoax, we’re treating every threat as real”, Fernandez said. Weymouth Police said in a statement that they conducted physical searches at all three schools, followed up by a scan done by police K-9 explosive detection dogs, and nothing suspicious was found.
