Students were forced to evacuate in Long Island, NY, after their school received fax warning of planted explosive device.
By: Jack Ben-David
A bomb threat was made via fax to an orthodox Jewish high school in Long Island, New York, on Thursday, forcing staff and pupils to evacuate the building.
According to staff at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR), the threatening message said that a bomb had planted on the Jewish Day school’s premises.
After the students were evacuated to a synagogue in the vicinity, police arrived at the scene, sending in sniffer dogs to search for explosive devices.
Following the search, in which no bomb was found, staff members and parents were given the all clear and students were able to resume regular activities as police launched an investigation to find the culprit behind the bogus threat.
The incident disrupts a comparative period of calm after Jewish institutions, including synagogues, cemeteries, and schools, were plagued by a wave of bomb threats and vandalism earlier this year.
By January, 27 Jewish Community Centers (JCC) across 17 states had reported receiving bomb threats, causing the FBI to launch an investigation.
In one case, two JCCs were threatened on the same day in Miami, Florida, forcing the evacuation of 300 children.
While many feared that the spate of threats was caused by far-right extremists , by March it transpired that the calls had been made by a mentally unstable man in Israel, who was promptly arrested by the Israel Police’s International Crime Investigations Unit.
Also in March, a former journalist identified as Juan M. Thompson, 31, from St. louis, was charged for making a series of threats to JCCs.