Tel-Chai Nation

A lot of schools in the Los Angeles district were forced to close today because of a violent threat message sent to many areas:

Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the United States, shut down all of its schools on Tuesday after officials reported receiving an unspecified threat and ordered a search of all schools.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the closure came after a "'credible threat' of violence involving backpacks and packages left at campuses."

Officials asked parents to keep all of the system's 643,000 students at home to allow time for a full search of more than 1,200 schools, from primary through high schools. It was the first closure of the full district in at least a decade, officials said, and appeared to be unprecedented in scale.

Students who were already at school were sent home, officials said.

The threat came less than two weeks after a married couple inspired by Islamic State militants shot dead 14 people in San Bernardino, California, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.

The school district regularly receives threats, but this one stood out for its scale, schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines said.

"This is a rare threat ... It was not to one school, two schools or three schools, it was many schools," Cortines told reporters at a press conference that began shortly before schools were to begin opening.

"I am not taking the chance of taking children any place into the building until I know it's safe."

It's unclear at the moment whether this has any connections to jihadists. But the school officials are doing the right thing to be on the alert.

Labels: anti-americanism, california, islam, jihad, terrorism, United States