The Long Island Press received a bomb threat Tuesday from an anonymous mailer naming Islip Town Hall as their target.
The foreboding message, scrawled in black ink on the inside of an empty white envelope with no return sender, stated in shaky handwriting: “Bomb At Islip Town Hall – Today!!!”
It is postmarked May 12 and was mailed from Mid-Island.
Suffolk County police were notified and officers from the Nassau County Police Department confiscated the ominous note, which bears striking resemblances to a threat made against Quogue Union Free School District that the Press received a little more than a year ago.
That warning, postmarked March 25 and March 26, 2013, also mailed from Mid-Island and written in black ink on the inside of an empty envelope with no return sender, declared: “I Left my bomb At Quogue School on Edgewood Rd.”
A fanged smiley face was scribbled alongside the message.
Quogue Village police, Nassau County police and the Joint Terrorism Task Force investigated that incident. Quogue School, which instructs 120 students from Pre-Kindergarten through Sixth Grade, was searched with the assistance of two New York State Police explosive-detecting K-9s. The school was closed for spring recess at the time and no bomb was found.
Both threats share the same style of squiggly penmanship, with individual letters and words exhibiting exactly the same nuances, suggesting they were written by the same author.
Suffolk police tell the Press Islip Town Hall was searched, no bomb discovered, and that Nassau police are also investigating. A Nassau detective informed the employee who originally opened the latest letter that the case has been referred to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Islip Town Hall is no stranger to bomb scares. Four such threats were dialed in from a pay phone in Central Islip between November 2011 and June 2012—one including additional threats against the Suffolk County Department of Social Services in Hauppauge. Another threat was also made against Long Island MacArthur Airport, which is run by the town.
A 41-year-old Central Islip man pleaded guilty in October 2012 to making those four false reports against Islip Town Hall—on Nov. 17, 2011 and Jan. 11, May 23 and June 12—and was sentenced to six months in jail and five years’ probation, according to court records.
