- Sometime during the night ALL School board members of the Los Angeles
Unified School District received a Bomb threat. Since the lives of
around 700,000 public school students in this district and surrounding
districts were at stake, the school district was shut down and all
children sent home and were allowed to ride for free today on public
transit in Los Angeles County to help insure their safety.
The Superintendant of Schools was supported by the Mayor of Los Angeles, the Sheriff, the Police Superintendent and the police Superintendent of the public school system there.
witnessed live on CNN TV 1:14pm Eastern Time.
Los Angeles closes schools from bomb threat, but New York City calls it a hoax
The Verge via Yahoo! News5 hours agoAn electronic message from "overseas" described as a credible bomb threat has led Los Angeles to shut down its entire school system, according to multiple news reports. Meanwhile, New York City...NYPD Commissioner Blasts LA's 'Overreaction' To Bomb Threat
The Huffington Post41 minutes agoLA schools closed; NYC received same threat
The Canton Repository6 hours ago
- Sometime during the night ALL School board members of the Los Angeles
Unified School District received a Bomb threat. Since the lives of
around 700,000 public school students in this district and surrounding
districts were at stake, the school district was shut down and all
children sent home and were allowed to ride for free today on public
transit in Los Angeles County to help insure their safety.
- All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses were closed Tuesday morning after a bomb threat was ... All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses were ...
- Dec 15, 2015 · LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles public schools were abruptly shut down and students sent home Tuesday morning, after the police received what officials ...
- Dec 14, 2015 · All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses ... Classes After Text Threats Shut Down School; ... High School in Corona Following Bomb Threat;
- ... LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles shut more ... bomb attack threat closes Los Angeles schools in ... Schools Shut Down After Unspecified Threat, ...
Watch live:
Gun and bomb attack threat closes Los Angeles schools in likely hoax
Tribune
`Credible Threat` to Los Angeles School District Prompts Closures
By Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles shut more than 1,000 public schools on Tuesday over a threatened attack with bombs and assault rifles, sending hundreds of thousands of students home as city leaders were criticized for over reacting to what federal officials later said was likely a hoax.
The emailed threat, which authorities said was "routed through Germany" but likely more local in origin, came less than two weeks after a married couple inspired by Islamic State killed 14 people and wounded 22 others at a county office building in San Bernardino, just 60 miles (100 km) away.
"Based on past circumstance, I could not take the chance," Los Angeles School Superintendent Ramon Cortines said at a news conference.
Federal officials, who asked not to be identified, echoed an assessment by New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton that the decision in Los Angeles was an "over reaction" and that New York had received an almost identical threat that was quickly deemed not credible.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he backed the decision and Police Chief Charlie Beck said it should not be second-guessed because the threat was "very specific to Los Angeles Unified School District campuses."
Beck said the email mentioned assault rifles and machine pistols and implied the use of explosives.
But the unprecedented move at the second-largest public school system in the United States left some 643,000 students and their families scrambling to cope and drew criticism.
A law enforcement source told Reuters that Los Angeles authorities ordered the closure to allow a full search of public school facilities without consulting with the FBI, which typically takes the lead on investigations into potential terrorism.. Some public schools in the city remained open as did most private schools.
"L.A. is a huge school system," said Bratton, who had previously served as police chief in Los Angeles. "To disrupt the daily schedules of half a million school children, their parents, day care, buses based on an anonymous email, without consultation, if in fact, consultation did not occur with law enforcement authorities, I think it was a significant over reaction."
Garcetti denied that assertion, saying his city had contacted federal law enforcement officials.
Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, told the New York Times that the person who sent the email claimed to be a devout Muslim prepared to launch an attack using bombs, nerve gas and rifles with "32 jihadist friends" because he had been bullied at a Los Angeles high school.
Sherman told the paper that the number of attackers and claim to have nerve gas cast doubts on the credibility of the email, as did the writer consistently failing to capitalize the word "Allah."
"While we continue to gather information about the threat made against the Los Angeles and New York School Departments, the preliminary assessment is that it was a hoax or something designed to disrupt school districts in large cities," Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee, said in a written statement.
Cortines, in defending his decision to take such a dramatic step, said the threat stood out from most that the district received in its seriousness and scope, referencing multiple campuses and mentioning backpacks and other packages.
"It is very easy for people to jump to conclusions and I have been around long enough to know that usually what people think in the first few hours is not what plays out in later hours," said the mayor, Garcetti. "But decisions have to be made in a matter of minutes."
Police Chief Beck said it was "irresponsible" to criticize the decision in the aftermath of the Dec. 2 attack on a regional center in San Bernardino, California, east of Los Angeles.
That massacre and other mass shootings have pushed the issues of militant Islamism and gun violence to the forefront of the U.S. presidential campaign.
A school district spokeswoman said that it had asked for 13 enforcement agencies to help search some 1,000 campuses, including 187 charter schools.
Professor Brian Levin, an expert on counter-terrorism and hate crimes at Cal State University San Bernardino, remarked on what a massive undertaking it would be to search schools.
"God bless 'em, but I couldn't do it. Who knows? Maybe they can. It involves looking in classrooms, closets, lockers - if you can get bomb-sniffing dogs in there, doing that - vehicles and surrounding perimeter areas," Levin said.
"If it were me, if I were chief, I'd want more time. But maybe the political pressures don't allow for that," he said.
Some parents used social media to vent frustration at having learned about the closures from the news media, rather than directly from the schools.
Ronna Bronstein, who has two sons in grade school, said she was trying to find out more while shielding her younger child from the news.
"I don't want him to be frightened to go back to school tomorrow," she said.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis, Sara Catania, Sue Horton, Dana Feldman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Daniel Wallis in Denver, Scott Malone in Boston, Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Mark Hosenball, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washington, D.C.; Writing by Scott Malone and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Jeffrey Benkoe, Grant McCool)
end quote from:Gun and bomb attack threat closes Los Angeles ...
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Gun and bomb attack threat closes Los Angeles schools
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