Dozens of New Jersey schools receive bomb, shooting threats

Nearly 30 schools in New Jersey received bomb and mass-shooting threats Tuesday, along with schools in at least six other states, prompting evacuations and lockdowns across the country.

Authorities on Tuesday briefly evacuated nine schools in New Jersey’s Bergen County in the northeastern part of the state just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, Agence France-Presse reported.

Students were evacuated in the morning but were given the all-clear and told to return to class by early afternoon.

At least 26 schools in New Jersey received the threats by phone starting at about 8:50 a.m., Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino said, Reuters reported. Some of the schools were threatened with bombs and others with mass shootings. The school were all later declared safe.

The threats were made in a robotic voice and seemed to come from computer-generated phone numbers that could be traced back to a location in Bakersfield, California, Sheriff Saudino said.

“When we catch the people doing this, an example is going to be made,” he told Reuters.

The threats extended to other states as well. In Massachusetts, schools in at least 15 communities received threats, state police said. Police offered no details but said no hazardous materials or credible threats were found after they conducted searches, Reuters reported.

Nine Boston-area schools also received threats Friday.

At least three schools in Delaware received voicemail threats made in a robotic or computer-generated voice, police said.

Schools in Iowa City, Iowa, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mesa, Arizona, and North Miami, Florida, also received similar threats according to statements from local law enforcement agencies, Reuters reported.