LA schools threat mentioned San Diego

A Los Angeles School Police officer checks-in with officials at the LAUSD Gardena Garage where the fleet of school buses from around the district remian parked while law enforcement investigate a threat against the district December 15, 2015.

On Tuesday, threats of violence were called into the two largest school districts in the nation – NY and Los Angeles.

“There was nothing credible about the threat”.

But Garcetti cautioned it was too early to draw conclusions.

California has been stunned by the massacre in San Bernardino, located about an hour east of Los Angeles, carried out by US-born Syed Farook and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik.

Los Angeles-based ABC7 was the first to report that the threatening message included mentions of the cities.

“We will be sending patrol units pretty much around all the schools”, Police Department spokesman Mike Lopez told the newspaper. It’s also easy to criticize a decision when you have no responsibility for the outcome of that decision. Every school in the L.A. Unified district is being targeted. “Probably not”, writes Danny Davis, a professor of homeland security at Texas A&M University in College Station, in an e-mail to the Monitor. “I want to reassure students, parents, guardians, teachers and other employees that our schools are safe”, LAUSD Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King said.

The threat, which was emailed late on Monday night, came from someone who claimed to be a devout Muslim prepared to launch an attack at multiple schools using bombs, nerve gas and rifles, Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, told the New York Times.

“Unlike Los Angeles and New York City, a threat was not sent to San Diego officials”, he added.

Superintendent Cortines’ comments follow criticism from New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton that the Lausd overreacted to the threat. Perhaps, even worldwide ones.

U.S. Representative Karen Bass, who represents parts of Los Angeles, in an interview with MSNBC television praised local officials for acting quickly. “I don’t think police are necessary”, she said.

The issue of backpacks at schools is a real one, Professor Burke notes.

Officials said the threat came via email, apparently from or routed through Frankfurt, Germany.

“And so from a psychological standpoint, that’s exactly what terrorism is: It’s to provoke fear so that your operations stop”, he says.

“There will always be temptation after a day like today to increase the blame and the anger and the vitriol and the suspicion, but what we saw today across Los Angeles was a community turning toward each other, not against each other”, LAUSD Board of Education President Steve Zimmer said Tuesday. “That is to say, life”.

But there were also signs of the city rallying to support a hard decision.

Bratton said he believed that email was “almost exactly the same” as the one sent to Los Angeles. “He’s heard of snow days on the East Coast”. “I can’t afford to miss a day”. “So this is really inconveniencing families who need the money”, she said. They are the best source of intelligence for these things.