Cops Follow Only Lead in School Threats

The search for the hoaxster behind the bomb threats that shut down schools in Los Angeles for a day has led investigators to an email service run by a Maine man—and he can't tell them much. Vincent Canfield, a 21-year-old who moved from Maine to Bucharest, Romania last week, says he has received a subpoena from investigators in New York, where schools were also threatened, but his service doesn't require users to submit any personal information and even IP addresses are deleted every week, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, which notes that the service has a "dirty name." Canfield tells the Portland Press-Herald that the threats are "despicable" and a "blatant abuse of my service."

Canfield tells the Chronicle that he believes the threats emailed to school districts across the US probably came from the same user. CBS reports that Canfield—who says he moved to Romania because of the lower cost of living—plans to comply with US law enforcement, though he has spoken to a lawyer who has represented Edward Snowden. Emailed threats were also received—and dismissed as hoaxes—by school districts including Miami, Dallas, and Houston, where authorities say they received an "over the top" threat claiming to be from a bullied Muslim student who planned a "massacre of epic proportion" with "46 Jihad affiliates," including "highly trained sniper forces straight from Ar Raqqa," the Houston Chronicle reports. (More hoax stories.)