LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Los Angeles police chief says the emailed threat that shut down the nation’s second-largest school district, Tuesday, 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.
 
     LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS THREAT-NEW YORK
 
     New York dismisses threat that closed Los Angeles schools
 
     NEW YORK (AP) – Officials in New York say Los Angeles school officials overreacted Tuesday when they shut down every school in the nation’s second-largest school district because of an emailed threat.
 
     The threat, sent to a school board member, raised fears of another attack like the deadly shooting in nearby San Bernardino.
 
     But New York officials say they received the same threat — and that it was also sent to many other cities around the country. And New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says there was “nothing credible” about it. He says it was “outlandish,” and that he’s “absolutely convinced” that there was no danger to schoolchildren in his city.
 
     New York Police Commissioner William Bratton quipped that it looked like the sender of the threat had watched a lot of the Showtime terrorism drama “Homeland.” He says the person claimed to be a jihadist, but made errors that indicated he was really a prankster. For one thing, “Allah” was spelled with a lower-case ‘a’.
 
     Bratton says there was a “significant overreaction” to the email in Los Angeles, where he once ran the police department. He says, “We cannot allow ourselves to raise levels of fear.”

 

Earlier…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The nation’s second-largest school district shut down all of its campuses Tuesday after an emailed threat targeted students at many Los Angeles-area schools.

The shooting in nearby San Bernardino that left 14 people dead this month influenced the decision to close all the schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which 640,000 students attend, Superintendent Ramon Cortines said.

New York City officials say they received the same threat, but quickly concluded that it was a hoax. New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said he thought Los Angeles officials overreacted.

Bratton said the person who wrote the note claimed to be a jihadist, but made errors that made it clear the person was a prankster.

A law enforcement official says the threat was emailed to a school board member late Monday and appeared to come from overseas. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

Officials would not elaborate on the threat, saying it was still being evaluated, but said the shutdown came as a precaution. Schools would remain closed until the threat was cleared, which could happen by the end of the day, officials said.

Los Angeles schools commonly get threats, but Cortines called this one rare.

“It was not to one school, two schools or three schools,” he said at a news conference. “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.”

Cortines said he wants every campus to be searched and a report given to him and the school board that they are safe. The district has more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools.

The superintendent 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,” Cortines said.

No students would be released on their own, and school leaders would wait with children whose parents had not yet arrived to pick them up, he said.

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.