Two big-city school systems have responded differently Tuesday to a threat of violence in schools.
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The Los Angeles Unified School District tweeted: “Students that have arrived at school will be with staff until parents or guardians can be contacted”. It was the first closure of the full district in at least a decade, officials said.
GWEN IFILL: Cortines was referring to the rampage two weeks ago in nearby San Bernardino, where a married couple, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at a holiday party.
At today’s presser, Beck, LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines and Mayor Eric Garcetti defended the district’s unprecedented shut down, indicating that the decision was made prior to finding out about the threats in NY. “I, as superintendent, am not going to take the chance with the life of students”.
Officials said the threat came in electronic form and was made to numerous but unspecified campuses.
Private schools in the district remained open since the threat was only directed at public schools.
A law enforcement source told Reuters that Los Angeles authorities ordered the closure to allow a full search of public school facilities without consulting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which typically takes the lead on investigations into potential terrorism. New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said he thought Los Angeles officials overreacted.
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.
Parents take their children return home from school early Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2015, in Los Angeles. He noted that the LAPD supported LAUSD today, just as they supported law enforcement in San Bernardino during the shooting.
Steven Zipperman, the chief of the Los Angeles School Police Department, said the department received an “electronic threat that mentioned the safety of our schools”.
Later on Tuesday, authorities announced that the threat received by it the previous day was also most likely a hoax and that the schools would reopen on Wednesday, the New York Times reported.
Los Angeles schools have closed this morning after the district received a credible terror threat, according to the school district.
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LAUSD is the second largest school district in the country, serving more than 640,000 students between kindergarten and 12th grade, per its website. “I will issue a statement late this afternoon after the (school police) chief, Chief (Steve) Zipperman has informed me that the schools have been searched, and it is OK”. “What we do know is that it will be safe for our children to return to school tomorrow”. But this clearly seems to be an act of malice, whether it is somebody who is threatening these schools with no intent to do that, somebody testing our strengths in multiple American cities to possibly engage in action, or the third, to actually engage in action, which thankfully has not borne out today.
