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| Version 0 | Version 1 |
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| Los Angeles closes all public schools over threat | Los Angeles closes all public schools over threat |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| All schools in the vast Los Angeles Unified School District have been ordered closed due to a threat. | All schools in the vast Los Angeles Unified School District have been ordered closed due to a threat. |
| School district spokeswoman Ellen Morgan announced the closure on Tuesday but released no further details. | School district spokeswoman Ellen Morgan announced the closure on Tuesday but released no further details. |
| At a press conference, school superintendent Ramon Cortines said that the threat was “not to one school, two school or three schools” but to “many schools” and “at school students” generally. He declined to describe the nature of the threat. | At a press conference, school superintendent Ramon Cortines said that the threat was “not to one school, two school or three schools” but to “many schools” and “at school students” generally. He declined to describe the nature of the threat. |
| He said he had asked staffers at schools to look for “anything that is out of order” but “not to touch anything, not to do anything” before contacting authorities – suggesting that he and school officials fear a bomb threat. | |
| Steve Zipperman, chief of the Los Angeles school police department, said the threat was delivered as an “electronic” message, and that the decision to close schools was made “in an abundance of caution”. | |
| “We do not know of any other information of any other threats in the county region at this time,” he added. | |
| LAPD assistant chief Jorge Villegas said that the department and the FBI are currently vetting the threat to determine its credibility. | |
| Cortines said that he would release a statement describing the threat only after police had searched schools. He asked for employers to be flexible with parents so that they could reunite with children. | |
| The district, the second largest in the nation, has 640,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools. | The district, the second largest in the nation, has 640,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and more than 900 schools and 187 public charter schools. |
| Despite the unprecedented scale of the closure, Cortines said he considered the Tuesday message a “rare threat”, given the recent terrorist attack in nearby San Bernardino. “I as superintendent am not going to take the chance with the life of a student.” | |
| “We get threats all the time,” he said. “We do evacuate schools, we do lock down schools, etc. We do not release students until we notify parents. | |
| “So what we are doing today is not different than what we always do, except we are doing this in a mass way.” |