Author Topic: L.A. Schools shut down today for terrorist threat (Read 593 times)

Neil Obstat · « **on:** December 15, 2015, 05:54:00 PM »

Security officials had been researching the threat and its source since 10 pm Monday night, but they did not contact Cortines the Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District until 5: am Tuesday (today) morning. Cortines decided to put out the order to cancel school for the day in the nation's second largest district, with 700,000 students.

Ramon Cortines is retiring with a pension of three figures.

Some sources have said that the threat included claims of Muslims acting at several locations at the same time to inflict violence on L.A. schools, using explosives and firearms.

Parents got "robo calls" generated by an automatic system that disseminates urgent information by way of phone calls, informing them (provided they answer the phone, that is) that their child(ren) would not have any school today. School buses were left in their parking lots and drivers took a holiday. A few buses that had already left for routes had to be recalled, and a few early pick-ups had to be taken back to their respective bus stops, or brought to centers where they would await pickup from their parents.

Teachers had no classes to hold and various scheduled tests, including some semester finals (charter schools start early in August so as to complete semester before Christmas) had to be stopped. Some students who feared being unprepared for tests were not unhappy that they were delayed.

Area businesses were asked to cooperate with employees who are parents of children who have nowhere to go since school is closed for the day.

Later, the authorities concluded that this was probably a hoax. The school district says it is a muti-million dollar hoax, but keeping the schools open was a risk they could not take.

The threat is being described in various ways, for it is common practice not to divulge details so as to not encourage copy-cat scenarios. They say that bombs left in packages, rifles and guns were mentioned in the threat, and several names of known people were used to lend credibility.

RomanCatholic1953 · « **Reply #1 on:** December 15, 2015, 10:01:23 PM »

Same thing happened in NYC today. However, the Officials said that
the threats were determined not credible, And the schools stayed opened.

PG · « **Reply #2 on:** December 15, 2015, 10:20:24 PM »

Did this superintendent announce his retirement today as well? Do you think they should have contacted him sooner? 10pm is not that late.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #3 on:** December 15, 2015, 11:31:04 PM »

Quote from: PG

Did this superintendent announce his retirement today as well? Do you think they should have contacted him sooner? 10pm is not that late.

I haven't seen any explanation why the police or whoever it was chose to wait 6 hours before notifying Cortines. It seems that several School Board members were e-mailed the same threat that came out of a server in Frankfurt, Germany, and I guess they turned the info over to the police or school police or security agents, seemingly instead of contacting Cortines, I guess. I'm putting things together here for you. My thoughts were that maybe they wanted him to not be unnecessarily disturbed before the decision time was imminent.

It seems the retirement of Cortines had been announced some time ago, but for whatever reason his replacement has not been determined yet. I suspect there is no small amount of power-hungry grubbing going on in that regard, but it won't be identified as such in the MSM. It's not a pretty picture up there.

On the other hand, perhaps they chose to leave him "out of the loop" until the last possible moment because he is in the process of retirement but his successor has not been chosen, and this way he can be pressured to get out of the way already, and things are not going to be running smoothly for him, or he's not getting the loyalty he would like to have from his support staff or whatever. If any of that's true then one might wonder if these power-hungry administrators are not more concerned with their own importance than they are with the safety of the school children.

Of course, what you'll see in the news is that the safety of the kids is "more important than anything" even more important than their education. Please have a good look at the countenance of the person speaking and ask yourself if maybe he's saying what he knows he HAS to say and not to describe honestly what he truly knows to be the reality going on.

But it's a longstanding matter of common knowledge in Los Angeles that the LAUSD is top-heavy with administrators, all stepping on each other's heads to get to the top of the ladder which is akin to winning the lottery. The top salaries are scandalously high. I have heard it from the inside that there are two or more administrators for every teacher in the School District. There is a building next to the 101 Freeway, a short walk over the bridge across the fwy from Mahony's "Cathedral," which is teeming with paper pushers all day long, and from what I've heard their first priority is preserving their own jobs. A few years ago one top level person did personal office remodeling for hundred$ of thou$and$, making his office into a quasi-spa/entertainment center.

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Neil Obstat · « **Reply #4 on:** December 15, 2015, 11:41:44 PM »

Quote from: RomanCatholic1953

Same thing happened in NYC today. However, the Officials said that
the threats were determined not credible, And the schools stayed opened.

I saw that news, too. They said that the message e-mailed to L.A. claimed some 34 Muslims were going to attack together, but a very similar e-mail to New York said about 130 Muslims were going to attack together there.

I'm thinking there are two ways of looking at this. Either this 130 figure was not believable somehow and that's why they said the threat wasn't credible, or else after the experience of 9-11, NY is a bit more battle-hardened and they think they can smell a rat better than the 'Left Coast' can.

The threat here was to the LAUSD, not to private schools. But I know of several private schools, including some Archdiocese Parochial schools, that voluntarily closed for today for the reason that "the police are spread too thin" and they wouldn't have the necessary protection to be safely open today.

I wonder how or if this affected the Republican Debates this afternoon?

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HiddenServant · « **Reply #5 on:** December 16, 2015, 04:38:37 PM »

I took my child to school with no call. Their was a police car
in the parking lot with another showing up after i dropped him
off. Then i big Police Van was going their shortly after i was
driving out near the area where i live. Then 10 minutes later
i had been given the Robo Call and i was a little upset but so
worried about my child just concerned.