Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff speaks during an announcement on roadway safety at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff was rushed out of a Washington high school on Tuesday because of a bomb threat, school administrators and White House aides said.
Emhoff, who is married to Vice President Kamala Harris, was visiting Dunbar High School to celebrate Black History Month. He was attending a presentation at around 2:20 p.m. ET when Secret Service quickly escorted him out of the building.
Shortly afterwards, teachers and students at the school were ordered to evacuate while the threat was investigated.
“We had a threat today to the facility so, basically, we took the precaution of evacuating everybody, as you saw,” said Enrique Gutierrez, a spokesperson for D.C. Public Schools. “I think everyone is safe. The building is clear.”
Dunbar’s principal, Nadine Smith, told reporters traveling with Emhoff that students had been sent home for the rest of the day.
A spokeswoman for Emhoff, Katie Peters, later tweeted that Emhoff had been safely evacuated.
The bomb threat comes exactly one week after more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities around the country all received bomb threats on the same day, Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month.
Dunbar High School is 94% black, according to the DC School Superintendent’s website.
The threats to the HBCU’s on Feb. 1 were eventually all found to be unsubstantiated. But many of the universities issued campus wide alerts and shelter in place orders while the threats were being investigated.
One day after the threats, law enforcement officials said the FBI had identified six minors as “persons of interest” in the coordinated bomb threats.
The official described the juveniles to NBC News as “tech savvy” and said they took steps to disguise themselves when making the threats. The officials also said the threats had a “racist motivation.”
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
