The following is via WABC:
Jewish community centers across the Tri-State area are on high alert after half a dozen received bomb threats Monday.
It’s the latest set of threats made at Jewish community centers across the country this year.
Heightened security is in place at local JCC’s, but they are resuming normal operations.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has ordered an investigation after the latest wave of threats.
Cuomo said Jewish centers in Tarrytown, Staten Island, New Rochelle and Plainview, Long Island were targeted with bomb threats on Monday.
The JCC Association of North America says Jewish community centers and day schools in at least a dozen states received bomb threats Monday. No bombs were found.
The group says it’s the fifth wave of bomb threats at Jewish institutions around the country since January. The group counts a total of 89 incidents in 30 states and Canada.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions denounced the threats.
“This is unacceptable behavior,” said Sessions. “We are a nation that’s diverse constituency and we don’t need these kinds of activities.”
The FBI and the Justice Department are also investigating the hoaxes.
In Philadelphia, meanwhile, police are investigating after hundreds of headstones were knocked over at a Jewish cemetery during the weekend.
On Staten Island, the threat was called into the JCC on Manor Road in the Sea View section just after 9:30 a.m. Monday. The same JCC was threatened on January 11, when a threatening sticker was found. The sticker was on a bathroom wall of the JCC. It said “bomb” and had a swastika on it.The building was searched by NYPD and no bomb was found.
In Tarrytown, the phoned-in bomb threat was made to the JCC on 371 South Broadway. Kids were evacuated from the nursery school, and were taken to the Double Tree Hotel next door. Tarrytown Police and Westchester County Police responded to the scene with their bomb squad, and later cleared the building.
In New Rochelle, the Jewish Community Center of Mid-Westchester, located on 999 Wilmot Road received a bomb threat via telephone. The caller claimed that there was a bomb inside the building. The building was evacuated, and New Rochelle Police searched the building with k9. No explosive devices or suspicious packages were found. The incident remains under investigation.
(Source: WABC)
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One Response
I am confident that law enforcement is actively and aggressively on these incidents, however, a comment from the Attorney General of the U.S. that “we don’t need these kinds of activities”is unconvincing and unemotional. Is that the best he can come up with to reassure the public?