March 20, 2004

LOCKERS PROBED

The Great D.C. School Search of 2004 is on:

Every school in D.C. is being searched for bombs after an Internet bomb threat was received.

"We're going to go to every school that exists within Washington, D.C.," Metropolitan Police spokesman Joe Gentile tells WTOP.

Gentile says the e-mail threat was received before 6 a.m., and indicated that five bombs were located at five D.C. schools. He says the e-mail did not designate what schools or even what type of schools were involved.

UPDATE. D.C. parent Tim Dunlop, who dropped his son off at school just before the threat was announced, reports a subsequent all-clear.

Posted by Tim Blair at March 20, 2004 01:18 AM
Comments

Hope that this threatening e-mail didn't go something like:

"This is Simple Simon. What is 21 out of 42"?

Posted by: Richard at March 20, 2004 at 01:42 AM

If somebody mailed that they have a moron as a police chief, they'd search police departments.

Posted by: Ron Hardin at March 20, 2004 at 01:43 AM

Richard's on the right track; get John McClane involved, pronto!

Posted by: Roger Bournival at March 20, 2004 at 01:44 AM

> ``We're going to go through the schools and see if there's anything in there, especially in this day and age.''

Teach the kids that ``day and age'' is hendiadys. How often do you get that chance?

Posted by: Ron Hardin at March 20, 2004 at 01:52 AM

Joe Gentile? Gentile? Apparently terrosists just want to make this man look like a fool.

Posted by: jeremy at March 20, 2004 at 03:31 AM

I've volunteered at a DC public school, and let me tell you, as long as the bomb goes off on a weekend while no kids are present, it would probably make a structural improvement.

Posted by: Bill at March 20, 2004 at 03:52 AM

What's wrong with his name?

Posted by: Barry Jew at March 20, 2004 at 09:09 AM

Bill,

So you are obviously familiar with the gambling game of "DC School Opening Lottery", right? You bet on how many DC schools won't be allowed to be opened each September because of building, safety, and fire code violations.

Posted by: David Crawford at March 20, 2004 at 05:19 PM

Heh. The volunteer work was fixing up the library in this elementary school. A couple thousand decrepit, ripped books were all stacked randomly in a room so dusty that I had respiratory problems for a week afterwards. We organized them, but the striking thing was this - the realization that the library wasn't even USED BY ANYONE AT THE SCHOOL. Scary.

Posted by: Bill at March 21, 2004 at 01:38 AM