New York City officials say they received the same bomb threat that prompted the closure of the Los Angeles school system but concluded that it was a hoax.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday morning he is “absolutely convinced” that there was no danger to schoolchildren in New York.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton says he thinks Los Angeles officials overreacted by deciding to close the nation’s second-largest school system.
The threat, de Blasio and Bratton said, came in the form of a “generic” email to many cities around the country. In New York, it was received by a superintendent early Tuesday.
Bratton called the closure a “significant overreaction.”
“We cannot allow ourselves to raise levels of fear,” said Bratton, who once ran the Los Angeles Police Department.
The person who wrote the threatening email, Bratton said, claimed to be a jihadist but made errors that indicated the writer was really a prankster, including spelling the word “Allah” with a lowercase “a.”
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck bristled at Bratton’s criticism. He said it was “irresponsible to criticize” the decision to close the schools.
Beck said the threat was specific to all the campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He says the email’s “implied threat” involved explosive devices and the “specific threat” was a shooting attack.
Beck says the email was routed through Germany but that police believe its origin was much closer.
The police chief says the city takes threats against its schools seriously given the recent attack in San Bernardino and the frequency of school shootings.
During a press conference Tuesday, Los Angeles district police Chief Steven Zipperman said the threat was still being evaluated. Schools would remain closed until the threat was cleared, which officials said could happen by the end of the day.
“We need the cooperation of the whole of Los Angeles today,” said school board President Steve Zimmer. “We need families and neighbors to work together with our schools and with our employees to make sure our schools are safe throughout today.”
District Superintendent Ramon Cortines said the Dec. 2 attack in nearby San Bernardino that left 14 people dead influenced the decision.
He would not detail the threat but described it generally as a “message.”
“It was not to one school, two schools or three schools. It was many schools, not specifically identified. But there were many schools. That’s the reason I took the action that I did … It was to students at schools.”
He says the schools commonly get threats, but called this one rare.
Cortines said the district police chief informed him about the threat shortly after 5 a.m.
“He shared with me that some of the details talked about backpacks, talked about other packages,” said Cortines, who would not elaborate.
The district has 640,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools.
The district spans 720 square miles including Los Angeles and all or part of more than 30 smaller cities and some unincorporated areas.
The closure came the same day classes were canceled at San Bernardino Valley College because of a bomb threat. Students and staff were sent home around 5:30 p.m. Monday after the threat was made.
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