16-Year-Old Charged With Calling in Bomb Threats to D.C. High Schools

A 16-year-old boy has been arrested and charged by Washington, D.C. police with terroristic threats in relation to bomb threats made to several schools over the past two days, WUSA reported.

One of the threats possibly connected to the teen forced second gentleman Doug Emhoff to be abruptly evacuated Tuesday from Dunbar High School, where he was attending an event.

The arrest came after the U.S. saw more than a half-dozen D.C. high schools evacuated on Wednesday afternoon in response to anonymous bomb threats, WRC-TV reported. The threats to schools in D.C. also came the week after a handful of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the U.S. received bomb threats, including Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia.

At least six HBCUs across five states reportedly received bomb threats on January 31, and a dozen more received similar threats on February 1, the first day of Black History Month, Newsweek reported. The FBI said last week that it had pinpointed five people who were allegedly involved in the threats.

D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said that it was collaborating with the FBI to determine whether the threats to D.C. schools and the threats to the HBCUs were connected, but no links have been confirmed, WRC-TV reported.

"This is preliminary. So I can't say with any certainty it's not related to recent threats with the historically black colleges, but our partners at the FBI Washington Field Office will work with us to kind of decipher what we have here and make those links, if any. But at this time, it doesn't appear to be related," MPD Executive Assistant Chief of Police Ashan Benedict said, according to WRC.

The teen is from Southeast D.C., but not further information on the suspect was immediately released, WRC reported.

In addition to Dunbar High School, which received threats on Tuesday and the day after, police said on Wednesday that they were investigating bomb threats at Theodore Roosevelt High School, Ron Brown High School, KIPP DC College Preparatory, IDEA Public Charter School and Seed Public Charter School. D.C. police later tweeted that all schools had been "cleared with no hazardous material found."

Later on Wednesday, D.C. police said that they had been made aware of additional threats at McKinley Tech High School and Friendship Public Charter School, but both were also cleared.

"MPD continues to investigate these incidents with our federal partners," D.C. police said in a tweet on Thursday.

Emhoff had to be escorted out of Dunbar High School on Tuesday, only a few minutes into the Black History Month event he was there to attend, Newsweek reported.

The MPD did not provide any further information in response to a Newsweek request.

Update 2/10/22, 10:33 a.m.: This article was updated with additional information.