LA PUENTE, Calif. (KABC) — A wave of threatening spam emails sent to several Southern California schools, including Catholic campuses, led to the cancellation of classes Monday afternoon.
Our Lady of the Assumption School in Claremont sent students home early after the campus received a bomb threat via email, according to police. Police determined there was no bomb, and that the threat was part of a wave of spam emails sent to hundreds of campuses.
Damien High School was evacuated and also closed for the day “in response to a threat against private schools in the area,” according to the La Verne Police Department.
Police added that the threat “appears to have come from overseas and has been deemed not credible.”
Bishop Amat High School in La Puente was also affected by the threat and notified parents classes were canceled out of an abundance of caution.
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles says its schools that received the email canceled classes as a precaution.
“This morning a few of our Catholic schools along with other non-Catholic schools received a spam email threating school safety that is similar to an email distributed to schools and institutions in Europe last week that was found to be not credible and meant to cause disruption, panic and fear,” the archdiocese said in a statement.
Last week, emailed bomb threats were sent to schools and kindergartens across the three Baltic nations, prompting the cancellation of classes across the region.
Although hundreds of children in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were told not to come to school because of bomb threats, a high-ranking Lithuanian official said there did not appear to be any danger.
Other schools in Compton, Alhambra, San Dimas and Covina were also impacted.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department says it’s aware of the threats and would “conduct patrol checks at local schools throughout the day.”
The L.A. Unified School District said it is not aware of any threats made to any of their campuses.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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