The email to Los Angeles school boards raised fears of another attack like the deadly shootings in nearby San Bernardino, but police in New York City on the other side of the country said they received the same threat and dismissed it.
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“Based on the information that we have, this was a very generic piece of writing sent to a number of different places simultaneously and also written in a fashion that suggests that it’s not plausible, and we’ve come to the conclusion that we must continue to keep our school system open”, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
“The preliminary assessment is that it was a hoax or something created to disrupt school districts in large cities”, said Adam Schiff, California Representative and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Vela said she worries about talking to her kids about the threat and terrorism in general. An actual attack, like the one that ended 14 lives in San Bernardino or the ones that killed 129 in Paris, requires planning and investment and the recruitment of a set of people willing to sacrifice themselves for hate.
Many parents were supportive of school officials’ better-safe-than-sorry approach.
Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg, Vermont, for instance, was evacuated on Tuesday after a bomb threat, local news reports said.
Students who have arrived at school will be with staff until parents and guardians are contacted, the district tweeted Tuesday morning.
The shutdown at America’s second-largest school district – federal officials said later the threat was likely a hoax – was highly unusual because it involved hundreds of thousands of students.
“I have faith in Commissioner Bratton; the NYPD knows what its doing”, said Patrick Dalton, whose first-grader attends PS 9, Concord.
“We can not allow ourselves to raise levels of fear”, said Bratton, who once ran the Los Angeles Police Department.
Ramon Cortines, superintendent for the Los Angeles Unified School District, defended his decision to shut the doors.
Students already at school were sent home, officials said, and families scrambled to come up with plans after the last-minute closures.
“We do have an investigation underway, but it is an investigation into a hoax”, Bratton said.
A bomb threat has shut down the nation’s second largest school district. Not because of snow or rain – this is Los Angeles, after all – but because a “credible threat of violence” had been issued against the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Beck alluded to the tense atmosphere in the region since the San Bernardino carnage, plus Cortines’ daunting responsibility of keeping about three quarters of a million students and school staffers safe day in and day out.
Cortines said the threat made mention of backpacks and “other packages”. Teachers and parents were turned away from schools before a districtwide call went out saying schools were closed due to unsafe conditions.
A law enforcement official says the threat was emailed to a school board member late Monday and appeared to come from overseas.
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LAUSD serves more than 664, 000 youths in grades K-12 and 255,000 adult students in more than 1,200 schools and centers.
