What to Know
- An entire New Jersey school district is closed on Friday due to a "security threat" posted to social media, officials say
- It's not clear what type of threat the Nutley School District received, but police said it was a video found on Instagram
- The threat comes less than two days after 17 people were gunned down inside a Florida high school
An entire school district in New Jersey is closed Friday because of a “security threat” posted on Instagram.
The specific nature of the threat Nutley School District received wasn't immediately clear, but police confirm it was a video put on the social network.
In a statement Thursday night announcing the closure, superintendent Julie Glazer said the district had "decided to err on the side of safety" and shut down.
“Because of the nature of the world in which we live, there was no other decision to be made,” she said.
Glazer added that schools will reopen after winter break on Feb. 26.
Police said they have spoken to the individual who posted the video to social media and detectives are in the process of speaking with all people who appear in it. They say the person is cooperating.
“There doesn’t appear to be an active threat to any of the schools but we must finish this process,” Nutley police said in a statement.
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The video is a slideshow of photos of a teenage boy, the first innocent enough but then showing him at a gun range, first with a rifle, then with a handgun, and then a picture of Nutley High School.
Andrew Tyerman, a student at the school, was alarmed when he saw the video: "Playing that song on top of the pictures and that video just made it very scary."
"It confused me a lot because I didn't know if it was a joke or anything," said student Halie Tyerman.
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The threat to the district comes less than two days after an ex-student at a Florida high school is accused of opening fire at the school, killing at least 17 people and injuring multiple others.
"I just saw it on TV and when it's actually happening where you live, it just takes you back," Nutley student Komal Khokhor said of the Instagram video.
"There was the Florida shooting and now there's this thread. Everything is all about guns now and it's a little scary," said Tyerman.
