This is a BREAKING and DEVELOPING story, it will be updated as information becomes available.
[UPDATE 3:32pmEST]
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said today that NYC public schools received a similar threat as the one in Los Angeles.
However, Bratton said these threats were a hoax and not in any way credible.
When asked about the decision in LA to shut down all schools, Bratton said it was a “significant overreaction.”
[UPDATE 2:20pmEST]
The Los Angeles police chief says the emailed threat that shut down the nation’s second-largest school district described an attack with assault rifles.
Chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday that it 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.
He says the LAPD gave advice to district officials, who then chose to close all of its more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools. Beck defended that decision.
According to the LA Times, officials have closed all Los Angeles Unified School District campuses Tuesday morning after a bomb threat was called in to board member, roiling the nation’s second-largest school district.
[revad1]
Authorities said they plan a search operation of all LAUSD schools after an “unspecified threat was received.”
Superintendent Ramon Cortines said:
“[The threat] conveyed not to one school, but many schools in the district. Details talked about backpacks, other packages…This is a rare threat. We get threats all the time.”
The move comes less than two weeks after two shooters killed 14 people in San Bernardino in what was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.
It is unclear when the threat was made and to which school board member, but the situation prompted the LAUSD to close all schools effective immediately, according to the Los Angeles school police.
Students and staff were directed to stay away from all campuses.
