Long Beach schools remain open after emailed threat called ‘non-credible’
A police vehicle patrols by a school in Los Angeles on Dec. 16 after the L.A. Unified School District received an email threat that shut down schools for a day. In Long Beach on Thursday, the school district received a similar threat but is remaining open.
Schools in the Long Beach Unified School District remain open with increased police presence Thursday, after the district received a threat similar to the one that shut down the Los Angeles Unified School District earlier this week, officials said.
The superintendent for Long Beach schools, as well as other staff members, received the threat early Thursday morning via email, said Thomas Hickman, the district’s chief of school safety. The district is being told by law enforcement that it’s “very similar in tone” to the threat made against LAUSD, Hickman said.
Join the conversation on Facebook >>
The district immediately notified the Long Beach Police Department of the threat, and the department’s joint terrorism task force began investigating and communicating with the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, Hickman said.
Long Beach Unified School Board member Megan Kerr confirmed the emailed threat and said schools would remain open.
The schools will remain on their usual schedules, the alert said, and parents are encouraged to send their children to school. There are 82 schools in the Long Beach district, Hickman said.
Times staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.
Follow me on Twitter @brittny_mejia
ALSO
What L.A. officials learned from the tumultuous LAUSD shutdown
Read the text of the threat that led Los Angeles to close its schools
L.A. defends response to threat that New York dismissed as a hoax
The stories shaping California
Get up to speed with our Essential California newsletter, sent six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.