Threat That Lead To LA School Cancellations ‘Wasn’t Credible’

A Los Angeles school official says the threat that shut down the nation’s second-largest school district was emailed to a school board member and is believed to have come from an IP address in Frankfurt, Germany.

“While we continue to gather information about the threat made against the Los Angeles and NY school departments, the preliminary assessment is that it was a hoax or something created to disrupt school districts in large cities”, he said Tuesday.

The threats came in simultaneously to NY and LA school officials at about 1:20 a.m. EST Tuesday, or about 10:20 p.m. Monday in Los Angeles. But New York officials deemed the threat to be a hoax, and kept schools open.

Bratton, who previously served as Los Angeles police chief from 2002 to 2009, said the person behind the threat may have been inspired by the television series “Homeland”.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – Taking a harder line on crimes no longer seen as juvenile pranks, state lawmakers around the US are proposing stiffer penalties for people who threaten schools at a time of fears over terrorism and mass shootings.

“There was nothing credible about the threat”.

Miami, which also has no plans to cancel classes, said parents were encouraged to send their children to regularly scheduled classes.

“Earlier this morning, we did receive an electronic threat that mentioned the safety of our schools”, school police Chief Steve Zipperman said. “We have bombs hidden in lockers already at several schools” and the would-be terrorists claimed that “explosives” and “nerve gas” would be part of the attack”.

The move in Los Angeles was “a significant overreaction”, said Bratton, who once ran the LAPD.

But most kids know nowadays that phoning in a bomb threat is a bridge too far. Additionally, we had no reports from any of our districts of any threats made directly to our schools.

The school closures and evacuations coincide with a widening national debate over security, gun control and the threat posed by Islamist militants in the United States and overseas, which has spilled into the 2016 presidential election campaign.

“The back-and-forth between NY and Los Angeles, I think it’s been way exaggerated and overplayed”, Garcetti said. New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton and federal officials also criticized authorities in Los Angeles for overreacting to the email. After all, two weeks before Christmas is a particularly busy time for parents, especially parents who are hourly wage employees: traditional wage workers like delivery drivers, post office employees, waiters, retail and stockroom workers and janitors and the new class of “gig economy” workers and freelancers. “Is this going to cause her some kind of trauma so that she’s not going to feel safe at school?”

SIEGLER: The school’s principal, Anthony Jackson, had just finished a security sweep, and they found nothing.

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.

“For my children, it’s been a recurring question”, she said.