A Long Island school district abruptly canceled its board meeting last week after receiving threatening phone calls they said praised the assassination of Charlie Kirk — but authorities called the hoopla hogwash.
Nassau County cops had rushed to Locust Valley High School during Wednesday night’s school board meeting, after the district’s Board of Education reported what it said were back-to-back calls from an unidentified 72-year-old drunken man who threatened them with violence and applauded Kirk’s shooter in Utah, police said.
“We have received this evening two back-to-back voicemails threatening gun violence to all of us here,” board President George Vasiliou announced to the audience minutes into the meeting, according to a now-deleted livestream from the night.
Vasiliou then canceled the meeting, telling people that the caller “complained” specifically about the board members and administrators present in the room as he “praised the terrible actions that happened in Utah and explained explicitly that he’d like to put us on the news as well.”
But in a bizarre twist, Nassau police said they believe district leadership heard the caller wrong.
Law-enforcement officials revealed that no threats were actually made by the intoxicated elderly man on either of his phone messages to the school — and that he was actually attempting to call back and confront a prankster who had spoofed their number as the school’s and was harassing him.
“There were no threats that were made on that call,” a rep for the Nassau County Police Department told The Post — adding that no admiration for Kirk’s killer was shared by the incensed elderly man, either.
The only reference the caller made to Kirk’s assassination in Utah was drunkenly saying, “It’s a shame what happened to that man,” police said.
“We’re not sure where they got what they’re saying from,” the police representative said of Locust Valley school-board officials.
During the Nassau cops’ investigation, they partnered with neighboring Suffolk County police — since the caller lived in Islip — in conjunction with the federal Department of Homeland Security.
After making contact with the caller at his home in Suffolk, police confirmed that he was the victim of a harassment campaign from a fake number and had drunkenly called back but made no actual threats at any point and has not been charged with any crime.
Police said Homeland Security officers interviewed school officials the next day, too and reviewed the tape as well, also finding none of the specific threats Vasiliou referenced.
“I’m honestly not sure why they called the police,” said a source within the NCPD, who listened to the recording, to The Post.
The Locust Valley School District did not respond to The Post’s request for comment, but it did release a mild statement addressing the bizarre situation.
“After a collaborative investigation by the Nassau County Police Department, Suffolk County Police Department and Homeland Security — we were advised by our law enforcement partners that there was no immediate threat to the Locust Valley school community,” Vasiliou said in a joint statement with district Superintendent Kristen Turnow.
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