Los Angeles Public Schools Closed Because of Threats
All Los Angeles Unified School District schools have been ordered closed Tuesday due to a “credible threat” of violence to students at numerous schools in the sprawling district, and a schools official confirmed that it was a bomb threat to the school district.
Los Angeles Unified is the nation’s second-largest school district, with more than 900 campuses and more than 640,000 students. Ramon Cortines, the school system’s superintendent, said the threat was against students at multiple schools. LAUSD spokeswoman Monica Carazo confirmed that it was a bomb threat.
“It was not to one school, two schools or three schools, it was many schools, not specifically identified, but there were many schools,” Cortines said. “That’s the reason that I took the action that I did.”
Teachers and support personnel also have been ordered to stay away from schools on Tuesday. Cortines said he intends to have every one of the district’s schools searched. He said that while it is not unusual for schools to receive threats, this one was “rare” and comes at a time of heightened concern about safety.
Los Angeles is an hour’s drive from San Bernardino, where less than two weeks ago, 14 people were killed by two alleged terrorists. A community college in San Bernardino also was closed Tuesday due to a bomb threat received Monday night.
“I as superintendent am not going to take a chance with the life of a student,” Cortines said.
New York City schools also received “almost exactly the same” threat Tuesday morning, but the threat was deemed not credible, Commissioner William J. Bratton said.
Bratton said the threat in New York was an email he described as “a hoax.” During a news conference Tuesday morning, Bratton said reviewing the email made him believe that the person who sent it may be a fan of “Homeland,” a Showtime series about terrorism and espionage.
The threat “mirrors a lot of recent episodes” of the series, said Bratton, who spent seven years as chief of the Los Angeles police force.
“We are very comfortable … that this is not a credible threat and is not something we are concerned with,” he said. “What we are concerned with is overreacting to it. We will stay aware, we will stay involved, but at all costs, cannot start overreacting to what will probably be a series of copycat-type initiatives.”
Also at a press conference Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he didn’t want to “aid and abet” those who want to sow panic.” As leaders it is our job to protect public order and keep things moving forward in this city,” he said.
The threat to Los Angeles schools also was made in an email to a school board member, according to U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
“The author claims to be an extremist Muslim who has teamed up with local jihadists,” Sherman, who represents an area northwest of downtown Los Angeles, said in a statement. “We do not know whether these claims are true or a lie. We do not know whether this email is from a devout Muslim who supports jihadists or perhaps a non-Muslim with a different agenda.”
Sherman said that he reviewed the email and described the threats as “relatively specific and wide ranging.”
The abrupt school closures in Los Angeles disrupted the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of families as parents scrambled to adjust work schedules or find emergency child care.
Danyell Sparks Mahoney, a stay-at-home mother of three children ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade, said she was glad that Cortines took a cautious approach to the threat Tuesday morning.
“I am grateful that they’re warning us and that they closed the school district down,” she said, adding that she’s eager for more information. “It’s scary, kind of.”
Officials offered few details about the nature of the threat, calling it only an “electronic threat” that came in the form of a “message.” Cortines said the school district plans to release more information later Tuesday and declined to comment on whether schools would reopen on Wednesday.
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FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said that the FBI’s Los Angeles office and the Los Angeles Police Department are assisting with the threat investigation. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department also is assisting with the search because some of the schools are outside the city limits, said deputy Jeff Gordon. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also are involved in the investigation.
A law enforcement official in Los Angeles said that all of the Los Angeles Unified School District schools were closed after a “credible threat” of violence was received. The threat involved backpacks and packages at the schools, the official said.
Though schools were not yet open for the day when they were ordered closed, some students had already been dropped off, officials said. LAUSD Board of Education President Steve Zimmer asked parents to pick up their children as soon as possible.
“I want to be very clear we need the cooperation of the whole of Los Angeles today,” Zimmer said. “We need families and neighbors to work together with our schools and with our employees to make sure that our kids are safe throughout the day. We need employers to show the flexibility that a situation like this demands.”
