At least 10 Jewish Community Centers across the country, including one in Chicago, were the target of bomb threats Monday, according to officials.
A threat to a facility in the 5200 block of South Hyde Park Boulevard about 10:10 a.m. Monday brought police to the scene, but officers and staff found no evidence that the threat was bona fide, according to police. No evacuation was necessary, according to police. The Hyde Park Jewish Community Center is at 5200 S. Hyde Park.
In upstate New York, a bomb threat that forced the Jewish Community Center to evacuate two buildings in Buffalo and Amherst, late Monday morning was part of a nationwide effort that saw at least 10 such centers targeted with similar threats, according to local and national officials.
Similar threats were reported Monday — on Presidents Day – in Cleveland, Houston, Tampa, Nashville, Birmingham, Albuquerque, St. Paul, Milwaukee and Whitefish Bay, Wis., according to media reports and local Jewish Community Center officials.
In all, 48 JCCs in 26 states and one Canadian province received nearly 60 bomb threats during January, according to an association of Jewish community centers across the nation. Those threats have continued in February.
Following an earlier round of threats—there have been at least four instances in which multiple Jewish centers have been targeted with telephone threats on the same day—the FBI confirmed that it is investigating the threats.
"The FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division are investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with threats to Jewish Community Centers across the country," a national FBI spokeswoman said in a statement late in January. She refused to provide further information, citing the ongoing investigation of the threats.
A Chicago FBI spokesman cited the earlier statement as all the information being released by the FBI regarding the threats.
On Monday, the community centers in Amherst and Buffalo were evacuated immediately following the threat phoned in to the Amherst facility. Law-enforcement officials searched both buildings, nothing was found, and both centers reopened within 2 1/2 hours.
The bomb threat was made at about 11:15 a.m., according to Amherst Assistant Police Chief Charles Cohen. Everyone in the building was evacuated to a nearby location, and the all-clear alert was sounded around 12:45 p.m.
"The NFTA dog helped us with a sweep," Cohen said. "Areas where we couldn’t get a dog in were visually checked by officers and staff."
In Buffalo, evacuees were taken to a nearby Delaware Avenue building. After Buffalo police investigated, the facility reopened by 1:30 p.m., according to witnesses on the scene.
"They accomplished what they wanted," local JCC Executive Director Richard A. Zakalik said of the people coordinating the threats. "The whole point was to scare and disrupt. Nevertheless, we take it very seriously, and we follow the procedures and protocols that are in place."
Zakalik thanked County Executive Mark Poloncarz, the State Police and other law-enforcement agencies that have reached out to help establish those procedures. And in a written statement to JCC members, Zakalik also praised his staff’s professional actions and the members’ cooperation in evacuating so quickly.
— The Buffalo News via Tribune Content Agency; the Chicago Tribune’s Liam Ford contributed.
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