(Jewish Group) Synagogue bomb threats continue despite arrest of a suspect
A Jewish center in Durham, North Carolina, evacuated its occupants after receiving a fake bomb threat on Tuesday, one week after the arrest of a suspect accused of directing a series of such threats at synagogues across the country.
Since the summer, dozens of Jewish institutions across America have been targeted with fake bomb threats, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL said it had identified three new threats at Jewish locations across North Carolina this week, including Tuesday’s.
The suspect who was arrested last week, Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos, was a Peruvian national who made more than 150 threats, mostly by email, against synagogues and other buildings both Jewish and non-Jewish across five different states in September, the FBI said. The period when he sent the threats included Rosh Hashanah, which took place in mid-September. The bomb threats began, the FBI said, after Santos tried and failed to solicit child pornography; phone numbers that were sent along with the threats belonged to teenage girls who had rejected or cut off contact with him.
But Nunez Santos’ activity did not account for all of the hoax threats Jewish institutions have received since July, according to ADL reports. And the incident at the Jewish Community Campus in Durham, which led to the evacuation of a Reform synagogue, a Jewish day school and a JCC all located on the campus, demonstrated that such threats have continued even with that suspect in custody.
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