Sheriff’s Department: local bomb threats ‘unsubstantiated’
UPDATE: According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, all threat reports they have investigated are “unsubstantiated”.
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Law enforcement is in the process of investigating several bomb threats in Palm Desert and Palm Springs. The threats have primarily been directed toward religious schools and institutions.
So far, law enforcement has responded to the following locations to investigate threats:
Sacred Heart Church & School in Palm Desert St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert St/ Francis of Assissi Church in La Quinta Unspecified location off Boardwalk Avenue in Palm Desert Computer business on 4500 block of Ramon Rd in Palm Springs
At least 20 threats of this nature were received in Riverside County Thursday. “About 12” of the calls were in the Coachella Valley, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
News Channel 3 has acquired a copy of one of the email threats, read below:
There is an explosive device in the buliding where your company is conducted. My recruited person constructed the bomb according to my guide. It is small and it is hidden very carefuly, it is not able to destroy the structure of the building, but if it detonates there will be many wounded people. My recuited perosn is watching the situation around the building. If any unusual behavior, panic or policeman is noticed he will power the device. I want to propose you a bargain. You pay me $20000 in Bitcoin and explosive will not detonate. But don’t try to fool me, I guarantee you that I have to withdraw my man only after 3 confirmations in blockchain.
You must pay me by the end of the working day. If you are late with the payment, explosive will deonate.
Nothing personal, if you don’t send me the money and the bomb detonates, next time other commerical enterprises iwll transfer me a lot more, because it is not a one-time action.
For my asfety, I will no longer visit this email account. I monitor my Bitcoin address every 30 minutes and after receiving the bitcoins I will give the command to my person to get away.
If an explosion occurred and the authorities notice this letter:
We aren’t the terrorist organization and don’t assume any liability for explosions in other buildings
According to a staff member at Sacred Heart School in Palm Desert, 650 students were evacuated from the school to allow bomb-sniffing dogs to search the premises.
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All children are safe, according to Sacred Heart Principal Alan Bruzzio.
There was also a heavy police presence at Palm Desert Presbyterian Church and Academy earlier today. Students were also evacuated from the Academy for a period of time earlier today.
According to Lieutenant Mike Casavan of the Palm Springs Police Department, PSPD is currently investigating a threat at Lasr-Ink, a computer business on the 4500 block of Ramon Road near Gene Autry Trail in Palm Springs. 
In an email sent to parents by Sacred Heart Principal Alan Bruzzio, parents can pick up students from attending school at the Sacred Heart campus.
“Attention parents, Please know that your children are all safe. Our preschool received a bomb threat this morning and the police were called immediately,” reads an email from Ramona de los Reyes, the Preschool Director for Sacred Heart.
Bruzzio provided additional details relating to the threat, in an email to parents:
“Minutes ago the preschool received an email bomb threat that is being received by businesses all over Riverside County. It appears to be targeting religious churches asking for money. For precaution we evacuated the preschool while the police check the building. The main school and church did not receive the email. The preschool is sending a separate email to their parents. We will keep you informed as things unfold.”
Deputies are investigating a series of mass email bomb threats “that have been sent to some businesses across the state,” according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
The Sheriff’s Department is one of several Southern California law enforcement agencies experiencing a recent influx in email threats, but no local threats have been substantiated at this time.
Several area roads have been blocked off by law enforcement.
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News Channel 3 received statements from both the Cathedral City Police Department and the Indio Police Department. No threat investigations are underway in these cities.
“No. We are aware of them but received no information from any of our schools,” read a statement from CCPD.
Statement from Lieutenant Jason T. Hapner, Indio Police Department investigative division.
“Although I have heard about this event, Indio has not been subject to this yet. As a matter of precaution, staff has been informed and a preliminary sweep/search of our facility was conducted and no threats were detected. I will keep you posted and we will update our social media pages if there is any notifications to be made. We may push something out proactively to alleviate our community’s fear and concerns,” read the Indio Police Department’s statement.
According to ABC News, law enforcement is in the process of investigating “multiple bomb threats made to numerous schools/businesses around the country.”
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{“url”:”https://twitter.com/NYPDCT/status/1073299647194632192″,”author_name”:”NYPDCounterterrorism”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/NYPDCT”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;We are currently monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city.&#lt;br&#gt;&#lt;br&#gt;These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide & are NOT considered credible at this time. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/GowGG4oZ9l”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/GowGG4oZ9l&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– NYPDCounterterrorism (@NYPDCT) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/NYPDCT/status/1073299647194632192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;December 13, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/FBI/status/1073355671662456832″,”author_name”:”FBI”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/FBI”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;FBI statement on recent bomb threats made across the country: &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/lOXnwtBZqB”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/lOXnwtBZqB&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– FBI (@FBI) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/FBI/status/1073355671662456832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;December 13, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
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