Los Angeles Unified Schools Closed Due To Threat

The nation's second-largest school district shut down Tuesday after school board members received an emailed threat that raised fears of another attack like the deadly shooting in nearby San Bernardino.

The shutdown abruptly closed more than 900 public schools and 187 charter schools attended by 640,000 students across Los Angeles.
A law enforcement source told CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton that the threat was emailed to several L.A. school district board members. Some of the emails are apparently publicly accessible.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines said every campus would be searched, and he asked for a report from the school board certifying that they are safe. He said the threat was "conveyed not to one school, but many schools in the district. Details talked about backpacks, other packages."

Authorities in New York City said 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.

The person who wrote the note claimed to be a jihadist, but made errors that made it clear the person was a prankster, Bratton said. Bratton said one indication that the email is a hoax is that Allah was not spelled with a capital "A."

"The language in the email would lead us to believe that this is not a jihadist initiative," he said.

District spokeswoman Shannon Haber said the threat was sent by email to a school board member and was believed to have come from an IP address in Frankfurt, Germany.

Authorities would not elaborate on the threat, saying it was still being evaluated. They described the shutdown was a precaution.

An FBI official told Milton that the FBI is assisting the Los Angeles Police Department in the investigation.