Scottsdale, Tucson Jewish community centers receive bomb threats
Feb 27, 2017, 7:20 PM | Updated: Feb 28, 2017, 11:26 am
(Facebook Photo of the Tucson Jewish Community Center)
(Facebook Photo of the Tucson Jewish Community Center)
PHOENIX — In a series of different Jewish community centers around the nation getting hit with vandalism and bomb threats, the scares were localized in Arizona Monday night.
Jewish community centers in both Scottsdale and Tucson each received bomb threats Monday evening.
The J near Sweetwater Avenue and Scottsdale Road in Scottsdale received a vague threat by phone, according to the Scottsdale Police Department.
Police said they cleared the building and premises with patrol officers, and the JCC resumed normal operations.
The Tucson Police Department said they got a phone call about 6 p.m. from someone claiming a bomb was set to go off in the JCC’s parking lot.
A bomb squad responded and swept the parking lot before clearing it.
About 200 people were in the community center at the time. They were not evacuated, but instead just sheltered in place, police said.
These threats are part of a nationwide trend over the last couple of months.
Jewish community centers and schools had received bomb threats in at least a dozen states earlier Monday. Officials say bomb threats were called into 13 Jewish community centers and seven Jewish day schools.
No bombs were found, and the JCC Association of North America said normal operations resumed at all 20 buildings.
Monday marked the fifth wave of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and Jewish institutions since January.
Also happening recently was the vandalism of more than 100 headstones on Sunday at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, damage discovered less than a week after similar vandalism in Missouri, authorities said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
