Police have arrested a 16-year-old male in connection with multiple bomb threats issued to District of Columbia schools on Wednesday.
The teenager faces terrorism threat charges, police said.
The Metropolitan Police Department said no evidence of explosives was found in the eight schools said to have been targeted, according to WUSA-TV.
#BREAKING: 16-year old boy arrested for making multiple bomb threats at DC schools, police say https://t.co/DMIwWM3TKK pic.twitter.com/N6TF2kn1Af
— FOX 5 DC (@fox5dc) February 10, 2022
The threats began Tuesday when Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, had to be hustled out of Dunbar High School after a bomb threat was phoned in during his visit to the school.
On Wednesday, multiple threats were issued by phone between noon and 1 p.m., forcing schools to evacuate. No injuries were reported during the evacuations.
Dunbar, McKinley Tech, Roosevelt and Ron Brown public high schools and three charter schools — KIPP DC College Preparatory, IDEA Public Charter School and Seed Public Charter School — were targeted.
Metropolitan police worked with Department of Homeland Security investigators, as well as other federal partners.
“These are troublesome incidents that we take very seriously. All students and staff were safely evacuated in accordance with DCPS protocols, and MPD responded swiftly to the schools,” D.C. schools chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee said amid the threats.
WUSA quoted federal officials as saying they believed the Tuesday call was the work of who they termed a “punk kid” with no larger motive.
It was unclear if the Wednesday threats were linked to the one issued Tuesday.
The FBI said encrypted communications make dealing with phone threats difficult.
“Our phone systems, internet systems, the ability to spoof phone numbers, is very easy now,” said Tom O’Connor, a veteran of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and principal consultant at FEDSquaredConsulting.
“It can now take longer than it did five years ago to track someone who calls in a bomb threat, because of encryption and going dark,” he said.
Boy, 16, charged after predominantly Black D.C. schools receive bomb threats https://t.co/TJHJseBunL via @nbcnews
— Kevin Agee (@preachingterp) February 10, 2022
The D.C. threats came a week after at least 17 historically black colleges and universities were also hit by bomb threats, according to the Daily Mail.
Spelman College in Atlanta also shut down Tuesday after its third bomb threat in a month.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
