The State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has said today that he supported the decision to close all Los Angeles schools in response to an email threat, and he directed his staff to work with the district to prevent the loss of millions of dollars in state funding due to the mass closure.
The daylong shutdown cost $29million in state funding according to officials.
The threat, which was emailed late on Monday night, came from someone who claimed to be a devout Muslim prepared to launch an attack at multiple schools using bombs, nerve gas and rifles.
An almost identical email was sent to school officials in New York City, but the Mayor and NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton declined to take the same action.
LA police, school boards, and politicians even stuck by their decision after New York officials highlighted major flaws in the email – such as the spelling of ‘Allah’ with a lowercase ‘a’.
It has also been revealed the writer of the message claimed he joined a ‘jihadi cell’ after he’d been bullied and rejected from ‘one of the district’s high schools’.
The threatening email, which threw school days on the West coast into disarray, read: ‘I am a devout Muslim, and was once against violence, but I have teamed up with a local jihadist cell as it is the only way I’ll be able to accomplish my massacre the correct way.’
Read More: L.A. schools to reopen Wednesday; threat against schools was ‘not credible,’ officials say
