On Tuesday, Dec. 15 2015, Los Angeles students got to stay home from school after a fake bomb threat was sent into the county. The Los Angeles school district is the second largest in the nation, with over 640,000 students. Over 1,000 schools in the county were searched by authorities, and by later that afternoon the schools were deemed safe for students to attend.
The Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti, supported the decision to close the schools. However, he was not in charge of making the decision to close the schools. Once others heard that the bomb threat was a hoax, Garcetti received some criticism about the district’s decision. The people who made the decision to close the school said that they could have had better communication with officials from other agencies, they also could have detected that the threat was a hoax earlier.
Others cities across the nation received similar bomb threats before and after Los Angeles did. New York had received a threat earlier, but they believed it was a hoax from early on, and decided to keep their schools open. Other cities in California, Texas, Florida, Indiana, and Nevada also received a bomb threat shortly after the one in Los Angeles. They all decided to keep their counties open, because they believed it was not real as well. The Los Angeles Schools reopened the following day, Wednesday, December 16.