Emailed threat shuts down second-largest US school district

Metro is offering free rides to L.A. Unified students with valid school ID through 12 pm today.

One mother of an LA student told Sky News she believed the city-wide closure was the “responsible” thing to do.

Students who already arrived at school are being supervised until parents can pick them up, while buses that had taken children to school early were turned around.

Cortines has defended his decision, telling The Huffington Post that he was thinking about the recent attack in San Bernardino. He said many schools were threatened, though none by name.

Steve Zimmer, the president of LAUSD’s Board of Education, said at a news conference Tuesday morning that the decision to close the schools for the day was “appropriate given the situation we are in”. He said the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been in touch with California authorities. “We are deferring to law enforcement on any questions relating to the threat”.

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton told reporters that officials in the city received the same emailed threat but determined it was a hoax, according to the New York Daily News.

Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck hit out at criticism that the shutdown was unnecessary, insisting it was justified with the children’s safety paramount.

The FBI is working with NY as well as Los Angeles police on the threat, according to Bratton. The official wasn’t authorized to speak about an ongoing investigation and insisted on anonymity. He said he had to Google all the information and wondered whether it was a bomb threat or something else. NY dismissed the warning as an amateurish hoax and held class as usual.

“That’s the reason I took the action that I did”, he said.

New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said a superintendent in his city’s school system – the country’s largest – received an email “almost exactly the same” as one sent to Los Angeles.

The threat “was so generic, so outlandish, and posed to numerous school systems simultaneously” that it was clearly not credible, de Blasio said.

A sign indicates students that the school is closed at the Ramon Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles. The person also claimed to be a jihadist but made errors that suggested the writer was really a prankster, including spelling the word “Allah” with a lowercase “a” and making no reference to the Quaran.

A voice message from the LA Unified School District said: “As a result of a threat received the superintendent has directed all schools to be closed today”.

Lee Stein, a parent with a daughter in fifth grade at Ivanhoe Elementary School, said he heard about the closure via a news alert to his phone, which he confirmed by calling the principal.

Vela said she worries about talking to her kids about the threat and terrorism in general.

“I won’t be calm until she’s with me”, he said. The official says the threat was sent late Monday.

The threat, which authorities said was “routed through Germany” but likely more local in origin, came less than two weeks a married couple inspired by Islamic State militants shot dead 14 people in San Bernardino, California, east of Los Angeles.