School officials said that on September 11, 2001, when many people returned home from work after the attacks on the East Coast, Los Angeles schools remained open.
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Bratton called the closure in Los Angeles a “significant overreaction”.
(AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu).
The second deadliest left 20 young children and six educators dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.
Beck said a “very specific threat” was “delievered via email” to members of the school board and that authorities in LA became “very concerned” and “contacted the FBI” before the decision to close the schools was ultimately made.
The closure came the same day classes were canceled at San Bernardino Valley College because of a bomb threat. On the other hand, New York, which received a similar scare, initiated an investigation and announced the threat was a hoax. Districts regularly encounter the challenge of deciphering threats, complicated today by more sophisticated technology that can make them harder to trace.
“There is no credible threat to our children”.
“They claim to be [a] devout Muslim, one might say an extremist Muslim, that is now working with jihadis and he claims to have 32 accomplices and so all 33 of them are supposed to descend on Los Angeles schools [Tuesday] morning”, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., told Fox News Channel’s “On The Record” Tuesday evening. “And if they come to the conclusion that they can literally mail it in, call it in and disrupt large cities, they’re going to take advantage of that”.
He said the threat was made to numerous schools but declined to give further details.
The Federal Bureau of Investigating is looking into the threat and still analysing it. About 37 percent of the threats were sent electronically, and almost a third resulted in schools being evacuated. Almost 10 percent of the threats closed school for at least one day. “I don’t want him to be frightened to go back to school tomorrow”, she said.
LA police, school boards, and politicians even stuck by their decision after NY officials highlighted major flaws in the email – such as the misspelling of “Allah” with a lowercase “a”.
NY also received a threat claiming to be from jihadist, but found it to be generic and outlandish and so determined it was a hoax.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton, who himself once ran the LA Police Department, said it seemed the sender of the email appeared to be a fan of the TV show Homeland – and warned: “We can not allow ourselves to raise levels of fear”.
Officials in LA defended the move to shut schools, with that city’s police chief dismissing the criticism as “irresponsible”. Sherman says someone familiar with that system would use “New York City Schools”.
Regardless of whether the threats were sent by a wannabe terrorist or a prankster, we can acknowledge and reaffirm that this is the new age of terrorism. But the Los Angeles email manages to capitalize the word.
District Superintendent Ramon Cortines said he ordered the closure as a precaution.
Reports suggest the threat via an email which referred to backpacks, and was targeted at students specifically, not school campuses. “I, as the superintendent, am not going to take the chance with the life of a student”. “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”.
“I know the kids are anxious”, she said.
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Crisis counselors will be on hand to help students feel safe and visible security will be in place among all campuses.
