Youth makes bomb threats to New York City school to impress Xbox Live friends

A high school in New York City has been evacuated out three times over the past 10 days due to repeated bomb threats made by a teenage boy who wanted to impress friends he met playing games on Xbox Live.

Two other schools in the New York City borough also were evacuated on Tuesday, although authorities are unaware if the same boy is behind those incidents.

The Staten Island Advance reports that: "The boy was egged on by his online friends, whom he met playing an Xbox game." The name of the game the boy was playing is not known.

The suspect is accused of sending a threatening e-mail to the principal of Susan Wagner High School causing an evacuation on 14 May.

After police searched the building, the boy sent another distressing e-mail, then another on Monday, threatening to detonate four different bombs missed by the sweep.

He continued that on Tuesday with a telephone threat to "blow up his school".

Two other schools in the north end of the borough also cleared out Tuesday morning after receiving bomb threats, but investigators have not yet determined if the same suspect was involved in those.