School Board: Authorities Knew Early on Bomb Threat at MHS Was Hoax

Authorities knew early on that a bomb threat against Malibu High School was a hoax, but implemented lockdowns at several schools as a precaution to keep students safe.

An anonymous caller made the threats just after 11 a.m. Thursday to Malibu High School, prompting lockdowns at , and .

“There were about three, 30-minute conversations going on with the individuals. We did work with the [sheriff's] IT Department to do some trace some calls, which required some collaboration with AT&T ... They are continuing to monitor the phone lines and all the calls going in," Malibu High School Principal Mark Kelly told the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board on Thursday.

Kelly noted that the sheriff's department does not know if the caller was a current or former student.

"Hopefully we are able to determine who did this. We had to cancel a lot of activities this afternoon," he said.

Sandra Lyon, superintendent for the SMMUSD, said that the sheriff was able to speak to one of the callers for a period of time.

"We had early indications from the sheriff that they did believe it was a hoax … We wanted to make sure students were safe," Lyon said.

The bomb threat was made during state testing week, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. Another round of testing is set for Friday for grades 6-11.

SMMUSD Board member Ben Allen said that whoever made the call will be held accountable.

"This is not a joke. A lot of time, energy, resources time and money were spent. We take these calls very seriously. Whoever did this really caused a great deal of cost and disruption to our district and our community," Allen said.

Yasi Afsharnive, a student at MHS, told the board that she learned about the threat during third period.

"The entire school evacuated their classrooms for what we believed to be a fire drill," Afsharnive said.

She said that the emotions of the students varied.

"There were the underclassmen and the middle schoolers who were surprised, upset, distraught," Asfharnive said, adding that upperclassmen were taking photos on their cell phones and adding updates to Instagram.