Asbury Park, NJ school lockdown sparked by tweet with burning school
ASBURY PARK — Police said an "alarming social media post" from a suspended school district employee led to the lock down of the high school and an elementary school on Tuesday.
Police spokesman Michael Casey told New Jersey 101.5 the message in question appeared on Twitter around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday with a picture of a school that looked like flames were coming out of it. "What I learned in school" was written on the image with crosshairs over the letter o’s in school.
The school in the image was not an Asbury Park school, according to Casey.
After reading the message and taking into account the occupation of the writer, Asbury Park High School and the Thurgood Marshall Elementary School were put on lockdown by police around 11 a.m. Casey said the rest of the schools in the district sheltered in place. Primary Day voting was temporarily interrupted at the high school.
A joint investigation by Asbury Park and Jersey City police led to the lockdown being lifted around noon and voting allowed to resume. Police said no charges have yet been filed in the case.
The Asbury Park Press first reported about the contents of the tweet.
Later on Tuesday, Rowan University received a call that multiple bombs had been placed at all three of its main campus in Glassboro, the medical school in Camden and the Stratford campus. By 1:50 p.m., the school said university police completed an inspection of all buildings and gave the all-clear for a return.