The full email, first obtained by KABC and KTLA, warns of “something very big” and the threat of bombs in lockers and “an army of Allah” storming several schools at once across Los Angeles. Parents and guardians will be required to show proper identification when picking up their children at school.
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The threat came less than two weeks after a brazen terror attack by Islamic radicals killed 14 people and wounded more than 20 at a social service center in San Bernardino on December 2. New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said that it looked like the sender of the threat had watched a lot of the Showtime terrorism drama “Homeland”.
“The Houston Independent School District…received a threat of violence similar to those received this week by school districts across the nation including Los Angeles, New York and Miami”.
Sherman also noted that the email sent to NY was received at 5 a.m. local time and may not have been actually read until later, making it too late to close NY schools.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday that her agency has not made any arrests or filed any charges in the case so far.
“These things keep happening, and they’re happening too often”, said Wisconsin state Rep. Ed Brooks, a Republican.
“It is very easy to criticize a decision when you have no responsibility for the outcome of that decision”, Beck said.
With crisis counselors available for those wanting to talk about the incident, more than 640,000 students returned to their schools following a day of uncertainty and some chaos.
Still, in closing down the LA schools officials there handed whoever made the threat a victory.
In Texas, The Houston Chronicle tweeted out that school officials in Dallas and Houston received similar, non-credible, threats. “We should not disrupt our normal pattern, activities and way of life in Broward County when we don’t see any credible threats that come in”. But as a precautionary measure, law enforcement officers are now conducting random sweeps of school district buildings to ensure student safety. The source of the threat that led Los Angeles to cancel classes Tuesday remains unknown, but the district’s response reflected lingering unease over terrorism.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio described the email threat as “generic” and “outlandish”, adding that it was hard to take the threat seriously.
Bratton called the closure a “significant overreaction”.
The threat “was not to one school, two schools or three schools”, he said at a news conference Tuesday morning.
The message also said the person boasted of having “32 accomplices… all ready to take action today”, Sherman said. “Who knows what it does psychologically to kids?”
Police officers walk out of Los Angeles High School in Los Angeles, on Tuesday morning, December 15, 2015.
ANTHONY JACKSON: I think we’re all on – you know, we have a heightened awareness and sensitivity to what’s been going on in the world given, you know, recent events – right? – both on our side of the pond and across the pond and in Europe.
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“This is going to happen at every school, every school”, said a concerned parent.
