Threat shuts down campuses

At least a dozen schools were put on lockdown, streets were sealed off and a wave of law enforcement swept across eastern Los Angeles and Santa Monica early Thursday after an anonymous caller threatened to “shoot up” a campus.

A 19-year-old Santa Monica College student was arrested 90 minutes later on campus when he surrendered to school psychological services after police identified him as the person who had called 911, saying he had a gun and was going to attack a school and shoot himself on campus.

The caller had spoken with a California Highway Patrol dispatcher, who traced the call to a Monterey Park neighborhood near the East Los Angeles College campus. The community college was immediately evacuated and 10 elementary and middle schools in the area were put on lockdown, as were some schools in Santa Monica after it was determined the caller was a student there.

The massive response underscored the stepped-up vigilance in Los Angeles to such threats in the wake of the violence and mass casualties in Newtown, Conn., and again at the Boston Marathon last month.

For about two hours Thursday, more than a dozen Monterey Park police officers were stationed at city schools and at least 25 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies blocked intersections and patrolled the area near the East L.A. College campus.

Though no target was specified by the caller and no one with a weapon was seen, the law enforcement response was immediate and massive.

“We take every threat very seriously and this is what we’re doing as a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of the students and residents,” said Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

In the last month, police and sheriff’s deputies in the L.A. area have had to react to numerous bomb threats, all of which proved to be false alarms. Thursday’s incident appeared to be more of the same. When the student was apprehended, he was unarmed, police said.

“For us it was an overabundance of caution,” Monterey Park Police Chief Jim Smith said of the school lockdowns. “We felt that it would be more prudent to protect the children in the community until an investigation could take place or the suspect could be taken into custody.”

Classes at East L.A. College were canceled for the rest of the day Thursday. Santa Monica College reopened after the student was taken into custody.

Across the street from East L.A. College on Thursday morning, Kaz Tsujimoto and his wife had just left preschool at Robert Hill Lane school with their twin 4-year-old boys held tightly in hand.

The couple said they were terrified when they heard about the threats. They called the preschool and were told all the children were inside and on lockdown.

Tsujimoto thought immediately of Newtown and feared for the worst. “In light of everything going on, it’s corny, but you never think it’d happen so close to you,” he said. “It’s scary. It really wakes you up.”

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joseph.serna@latimes.com

rosanna.xia@latimes.com

Times staff writers Kate Mather and Andrew Blankstein contributed to this report.