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 However, three suburban Indianapolis school districts reported
potentially serious threats, with two districts shutting down on
Thursday and another canceling classes for Friday.
Overnight, two students from Danville High School west of
Indianapolis were arrested, accused of a separate set of threats
made on Wednesday before the social media threats that prompted the
closures.
Officials were on heightened alertness after the deadly attacks in
San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2. On Tuesday, Los Angeles shut
down schools over emailed threats that later were deemed a hoax.
School districts in Houston, Dallas, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami
and San Francisco all decided on Thursday that emailed threats were
not credible and were similar to ones sent to schools in New York
City and Los Angeles earlier this week.
All-clears were given after bomb threats on Thursday at East Orange
Campus High School in New Jersey and at Anacostia and Frank W.
Ballou Senior high schools in Washington, D.C., according to
officials. At least two of those schools were temporarily evacuated.
"MORE OF A LOCAL SITUATION"
The Indiana threats appeared to be different from the hoax emails
sent to the larger school districts elsewhere in the country,
Danville Community School Corporation Superintendent Tracy Shafer
told Reuters.
"This seems to be more of a local situation and the perceived
threats were posted to social media and were specific to our
schools," Shafer said.
Earlier, Danville Police Chief William Wright told reporters at a
news conference that two Danville Community High School students, a
freshman and a senior, were arrested after midnight on Thursday "due
to threats received through social media."
He said the two juveniles could be charged with intimidation and
other crimes.
Wright and Shafer both said that further threats were made on
Facebook after the arrests, apparently by another person who is
still being sought. The later threats involved schools in Plainfield
and Danville, prompting both districts to shut schools on Thursday.
Plainfield has six schools and about 5,400 students, while Danville
has four schools and about 2,500 students.
South of Indianapolis, Franklin Community Schools, with close to
5,000 students at eight schools, evacuated its high school due to a
threat on Thursday afternoon and said all of its schools would be
closed on Friday.
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FLORIDA, TEXAS, CALIFORNIA THREATS NOT CREDIBLE
School officials in Texas, Florida and California said they
increased school security to be on the safe side.
"At this time, we do not believe the threat is credible, but as a
precautionary measure, law enforcement officers are in the process
of conducting random sweeps of school district buildings to ensure
student safety," the Houston Independent School District, with about
215,000 students, said in a statement.
In a move criticized by some law enforcement officials as an
overreaction, officials in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest
school district, canceled classes for 640,000 public school students
on Tuesday over a threatened attack with bombs and guns that was
later deemed a hoax.
New York City officials said they received a nearly identical threat
to public schools but dismissed the message and kept schools open.
A spokeswoman for Broward County Public Schools in South Florida
said the district's police department immediately communicated an
emailed threat it received late Wednesday to federal, state and
local law enforcement agencies.
"At this juncture, the threat is deemed as less than credible," said
Tracy Clark, school district spokeswoman, adding additional security
had been deployed to schools as a precautionary measure. The
district has more than 265,000 students.
The Dallas Independent School District, with approximately 160,000
students, also said it would keep schools open.
San Francisco Public Schools said the emailed threat was
"non-specific," and an FBI search of school buildings uncovered
nothing suspicious.
(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Megan Cassella in
Washington, Ben Klayman in Detroit, Jon Herskovitz in Austin,
Barbara Liston in Orlando, Letitia Stein in Tampa, and Curtis
Skinner in San Francisco; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Colleen
Jenkins; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Cynthia Osterman)
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