LAUSD Classes to Resume After Schools Deemed ‘Safe’ Following Threat of Violence

The LAUSD is the nation’s second largest school district.

“I’m not going to take the chance with the life of a student”, said Cortines, who runs the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

The Los Angeles Unified School District lost $29 million in state funding following an anonymous email threat of a large-scale jihadi attack that prompted a district-wide closure.

“I think we’re beyond the point of someone saying ‘oh that can’t happen here.’ I think everyone understands it could happen here”, said Chris Wigent, Executive Director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators.

“It is very easy to criticize a decision when you have no responsibility for the outcome of that decision”, Beck said.

Parent Lupita Vela says she was terrified after getting the announcement, especially in light of the recent San Bernardino attack.

Dr. Max Abrahms, professor at Northeastern University in Boston said that “what we know so far is that the threat was issued in a form of an e-mail and it went to somebody in a leadership position at the school”. The Los Angeles Police Department was notified that night about the “specific” threat, which involved explosive devices and firearms, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said.

“We take all threats seriously”.

Los Angeles officials, headed by police Superintendent Ramon Cortines, immediately closed every school in the city that caused panic to all parents and more than 640,000 students of the whole district.

“My last four years here at one of the district high schools has been absolute hell”. The LAUSD student was struck by an L.A. city street services truck while crossing a street.

It’s not uncommon for school districts to receive threats.

In both emails the author claimed to be an observant Muslim, but there were flaws in the email language that led de Blasio to characterize the threat as “so generic and so outlandish”, according to CNN.

“I figure if I tell them ‘I know you are all shaken up and there’s no homework, ‘ then that’s scary”, Jones said. The message threatened that “138 comrades” would join the writer, who claimed to be a bullied high school student. “Other than that, I wouldn’t expect to see anything different when you drop your kids off for school on Thursday morning”.

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that the emailed had been deemed a “hoax or something created to disrupt school districts in large cities”.

Against the backdrop of the San Bernardino attack, it’s “just human nature” for LA authorities to be more cautious, Tama said.

Cortines ordered the schools closed early Tuesday, hours after a threat was emailed to several school officials.

Part of that involves working with local police who are the first ones called when a threat is made.

Should authorities take preventative action to stop mass destruction from occurring?

A woman and two kids walk past Elysian Heights Elementary School in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California December 15, 2015.

Wriggelsworth says that’s why his office investigates each threat as if it were real.