Officials would not elaborate on the threat, saying it was still being evaluated, but said the shutdown came as a precaution.
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Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat and senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reviewed the email and described its contents in a news release. All schools were closed for the day and searched amid an emailed threat of violence that was later determined to be “not credible”. “It was so outlandish”, de Blasio said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton agreed. NY has invested heavily in homeland security and terrorism response, which might make it easier to process the size of a threat, he said.
The district includes 640,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools. Additionally, we had no reports from any of our districts of any threats made directly to our schools. Beck says the email was routed through Germany, but that police believe its origin was much closer.
“There certainly is no uniform approach”, he said. But he said after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, thoughts of terrorism were never far from his mind. It claimed the writer and “138 comrades” would carry out the attack.
“The students in LA will be massacred mercilessly and there is nothing you can do to stop it”.
A law enforcement official with access to the document provided the email to The Associated Press.
Officials declined to reveal the details of the email, citing an ongoing investigation, the Chronicle reported.
Doubts had been cast over the email’s authenticity because of how the author, who claimed to be a devout Muslim, consistently failed to capitalise the word “Allah”.
But New York officials deemed the threat to be a hoax, and kept schools open. Police officers and crisis counselors were on hand Wednesday as students returned to school.
All our local schools, just like the schools in Los Angeles, have gone through training to evaluate and assess threats, and then to establish procedures on how to respond.
Bratton called the closure a “significant overreaction”. “These threats are made to promote fear… we can not allow us to raise the levels of fear”.
“Los Angeles doesn’t have that same kind of experience”, he said.
The decision to close the district disputed the morning routines of many Los Angeles families. Almost 10 percent of the threats closed school for at least one day. “I am not taking the chance of bringing children any place, into any part of the building, until I know it is safe”, he said at the time.
Students exit a bus as they arrive at Venice High School in Los Angeles, California.
He says after Paris and San Bernardino, law enforcement has warned about the possibility of schools becoming terrorist targets. “That’s the reason I took the action that I did”.
Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck and Sheriff Jim McDonnell said all their personnel will be in uniform Wednesday and patrols will be stepped up around LAUSD campuses to help allay any uneasiness among students and parents.
Later in the day, he conceded that the threat was not credible.
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“We don’t know anything about the suspect; we know that it probably came from overseas”, Downing said. Halfacre said she backed the officials who ordered the closure.
