Two high school seniors sent an email from a Muslim student’s account that announced a bomb threat, the Washington Post reports.
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More than 600 current and former students received the message. A The subject said “Bomb.” And the brief message stated: “Friday there will be a big boom.”
It turned out to be a hoax. School officials at the Washington Latin Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., expelled the two boys for threatening violence.
“I was never really worried that it was a real threat, but you have to obviously take those things very seriously,” said Head of School Martha Cutts. “It can be very unsettling for students to open an email and read that.”
She explained to all the students what the unidentified troublemakers did and the consequences of their actions. “These are absolutely teachable moments,” she added.
The two pranksters opened a laptop during class that a Muslim students forgot to log off. They took that opportunity to send the bomb scare using their classmate’s email account.
A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Washington Post that the incident is an example of anti-Muslim bullying. Ibrahim Hooper added that it should be considered a hate crime.
“It’s based on the overall atmosphere of Islamophobia in our society,” he said.
Read more at the Washington Post.
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