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Elementary School Evacuated Amid Bomb Scare, Parents Say

By  Sybile Penhirin and Aidan Gardiner | March 24, 2015 12:23pm 

 Police searched P.S. 102 Jacques Cartier for an explosive device, the NYPD said.
Police searched P.S. 102 Jacques Cartier for an explosive device, the NYPD said.
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DNAinfo/Sybile Penhirin

EAST HARLEM — More than 300 students and staff were evacuated from a 113th Street elementary school after someone called there with a bomb threat Tuesday morning, officials and parents said.

Police cleared P.S. 102 Jacques Cartier elementary school, at 315 E. 113th St., about 12:30 p.m., an hour after the report came in, according to police at the scene. 

Krystal Anne Heredia, 28, was visiting one of her four kids who attend the school when the threat was called in, she said.

"I was inside the school observing my son when a teacher pulled the fire alarm," Heredia said.

"Is this a drill," another teacher nearby asked, according to Heredia.

"She said, 'No. Let's go. Evacuate,'" according to the mom.

The 312 students enrolled at the school from pre-K to fifth grade left the building and walked to nearby P.S. 155 William Paca elementary, parents said. Temperatures outside hovered about 40 degrees, meteorologists said.

"They had no coats on, nothing. They were freezing," Heredia said.

A DOE spokesman did not immediately have further information about the bomb scare.