NYC schools received the same threat

The nation's two biggest school systems - New York City and Los Angeles - received threats of a large-scale attack Tuesday with guns and bombs, and LA reacted by shutting down the entire district, while New York dismissed the warning as an amateurish hoax and held class as usual.

In LA, the threat came in the form of an email to a school board member. Authorities in New York reported receiving the same "generic" email that was sent to other cities around the country. They decided there was no danger to schoolchildren, with Mayor Bill de Blasio concluding the threat contained "nothing credible."

"It was so outlandish," he said.

New York Police Commissioner William Bratton agreed, quipping that it looked like the sender of the threat had watched a lot of the Showtime terrorism drama "Homeland."

The threatening email sent to the New York City school superintendent warned that schools would be attacked with pressure cooker bombs, nerve agents and machine guns. It claimed the writer and "138 comrades" would carry out the attack.

Students "at every school in the New York City school district will be massacred, mercilessly. And there is nothing you can do to stop it," the message said.

The anonymous writer claimed to be a student at a district high school who had been bullied.

A law enforcement official with access to the document provided the email to The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to disclose details of an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The person who wrote the note also claimed to be a jihadist but made errors that suggested the writer was really a prankster, including spelling the word "Allah" with a lowercase "a."

The threats came in simultaneously to New York and LA school officials at about 1:20 a.m. EST Tuesday, or about 10:20 p.m. Monday in Los Angeles.

According to LA school police, the FBI and LA police were contacted late Monday, which would mean within 90 minutes or so of the threat arriving.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he would not second-guess the decisions made in Los Angeles or New York.