New York City school officials received the same bomb threat early Tuesday that prompted the closure of the Los Angeles school system, but police quickly concluded that it was a hoax.
Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters that he is “absolutely convinced” that there was no danger to schoolchildren in New York.
“There was nothing credible about the threat. It was so outlandish,” de Blasio said.
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said he thinks Los Angeles officials engaged in a “significant overreaction” by deciding to close the nation’s second-largest school system.
The threat, they said, came in the form of a “generic” email sent to many cities around the country. In New York, it was received by a school superintendent early Tuesday morning.
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, including spelling the word “Allah” with a lowercase “a.”
Bratton, who once ran the Los Angeles Police Department, quipped that it looked like the sender watched a lot of the Showtime show “Homeland.”
“We cannot allow ourselves to raise levels of fear,” Bratton said.
