A California elementary school was evacuated on Tuesday in response to a bomb threat, days after the school was targeted online by rightwing extremists over a playdate event.
Chabot elementary in Oakland received the threat over email before school started on Tuesday, forcing roughly 50 students and staff members to evacuate, authorities said. Police found no explosives after searching the school using dogs from the bomb detection team.
“The email had some racial undertones in it and we’re currently investigating that,” Lisa Ausmus, a captain with the Oakland police, told media. “We have asked the FBI and they’re going to come in and assist us with this investigation.”
The incident unfolded after the school faced a surge in online harassment over a playdate event organized over the weekend for the school’s Black, brown, and Asian and Pacific Islander families. The school, which is majority white, set up the event to help foster connection and belonging, organizers said.
“They’re trying to be more welcoming to families of color at the school,” Sam Davis, the district one representative for Oakland unified school district, told Oaklandside.
But a flier for the event was soon posted on Reddit, KRON4 reported, and the far-right extremist handle Libs of TikTok reposted it on Twitter. As its contact information spread online, the school saw a deluge of hate mail and phone calls, Chabot’s equity and inclusion committee told the outlet.
In one email, someone referenced a race war and said: “We’re going to put you back in chains or in the jungle where you belong.”
Libs of TikTok has been linked to waves of harassment as well as threats at schools, libraries and hospitals across the US. Earlier this week, a library in Davis, California, received a bomb threat for the third time. The library became a target for rightwing commenters online, including Libs of TikTok, after an official reportedly asked a speaker at an event to leave after they misgendered trans athletes.
An elementary school in Oklahoma received two bomb threats last week in the days after Libs of TikTok tweeted a video made by the school librarian in which she jokingly wrote about pushing her “radical liberal agenda” of “teaching kids to love books and be kind”.
Last year, multiple hospitals that provide gender-affirming care saw a series of threats. Boston children’s hospital had received three bomb threats by late November 2022. Libs of TikTok had posted about the hospital, claiming that the facility offers complex gender affirmation surgery to minors.
