Los Angeles shut more than 1,000 public schools on Tuesday over a threatened attack with bombs and assault rifles.
Hundreds of thousands of students were sent home as city authorities fended off criticism that they over-reacted to what federal officials later said was most likely a hoax.
The federal officials, who asked not to be identified, echoed an assessment by New York City police commissioner William Bratton that the decision in Los Angeles was an "over-reaction" and that New York had received a similar threat.
The emailed threat, which authorities said was “routed through Germany” but likely to have had a local origin, came less than two weeks after a married couple inspired by Islamic State killed 14 people and wounding 22 others at a county office building in San Bernardino, just 100 km away.
"Based on past circumstance, I could not take the chance," Los Angeles school superintendent Ramon Cortines said at a news conference.
Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said he backed the decision by Cortines, and police chief Charlie Beck said the decision shouldn't be second-guessed in the face of a threat that was "very specific to Los Angeles unified school district campuses".
Mr Beck said the email mentioned assault rifles and machine pistols and implied the use of explosives.
He said that officers would search all of the district’s campuses.
Unprecedented move
The unprecedented move in the second-largest public school system in the US left some 643,000 students and their families scrambling to make last-minute alternate arrangements and drew widespread criticism.
A law enforcement source told Reuters that Los Angeles authorities ordered the closure to allow a full search of about 900 public school facilities without consulting with the FBI, which takes the lead on any potential terrorism investigation.
Some public schools in the city remained open, as did most private schools.
Mr Bratton said that New York City's school system, the largest in the United States, had received "almost exactly the same" threat, but deemed it non-credible.
“LA is a huge school system,” said Mr Bratton, who had served as police chief in Los Angeles.
“To disrupt the daily schedules of half a million schoolchildren, their parents, day care, buses, based on an anonymous email, without consultation, if in fact, consultation did not occur with law enforcement authorities, I think it was a significant over-reaction.”
Mr Garcetti denied the assertion that officials had not contacted federal law enforcement officials.
Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, told CNN that the person who sent the email claimed to be an extremist Muslim, but said the text of the message gave reason to doubt this claim.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio also cited word choices in the note as a reason that the city considered the threat a likely hoax, saying that the avowed Muslim who wrote it failed to capitalise “Allah”.
Two federal officials, who asked not to be identified, also expressed skepticism to reporters.
Mr Cortines, in defending his decision to take such a dramatic step, said that the threat stood out from most that the district received due to its seriousness and scope, given that it referencedmultiple campuses and mentioned backpacks and other packages.
“It is very easy for people to jump to conclusions and I have been around long enough to know that usually what people think in the first few hours is not what plays out in later hours,” Mr Garcetti said.
“But decisions have to be made in a matter of minutes.”
Mr Beck said it was “irresponsible” to criticise the decision in the aftermath of the December 2nd attack on a regional centre in San Bernardino, east of the city.
That massacre and other mass shootings have pushed the issues of militant Islamism and gun violence to the forefront of the US presidential campaign.
Alternate plans
Students already at school were sent home, officials said, and families rushed to come up with alternate plans.
"It's disappointing," said Trinity Williams, a high school student who dropped off her younger sister at elementary school, only to find it was closed.
The two travelled on to Williams’ high school before they realised the whole system was shut down.
“I was supposed to give an essay in class today, and finals are Friday,” Ms Williams said. “I can’t afford to miss a day.”
Parents used social media to vent frustration at having learned about the closures from the news media, rather than directly from the schools.
Ronna Bronstein, who has two sons in grade school, said she was trying to find out more about the incident while shielding her younger child from the news.
“I don’t want him to be frightened to go back to school tomorrow,” she said.
Reuters