City on edge as more explosives found
UNITED STATES: Investigators pursuing a suspected serial bomber in the Texas capital faced new threats along with the promise of valuable new leads as their attention shifted yesterday to a FedEx shipping centre near San Antonio where a package exploded and the discovery of another, unexploded bomb near Austin’s airport.
Even as they pored through surveillance video footage and collected evidence hoping to get closer to tracking down whoever is behind the series of blasts that have killed two people and seriously wounded four others, a scare caused them to respond to a Goodwill store in southern Austin yesterday. It turned out to be an unrelated explosion: Someone dropped off a device sometimes used in military training and it went off, injuring a worker.
Police said they don’t believe it was the work of the bomber, or a copycat. They said such military items are occasionally donated to Goodwill instead of being properly disposed of.
Gary Davis, president and CEO of Goodwill Texas, said the device known as an artillery simulator detonated when an employee tried to handle it.
‘‘In this town, if an incendiary device goes off, everybody just scatters and panics,’’ Davis said as he stood outside a police barrier huddling with other employees. ‘‘We’re all on edge.’’
Even before the Goodwill scare, it had been a busy day. A bomb inside a package exploded around 1am, local time, as it passed along a conveyer belt at a FedEx shipping centre in Schertz, northeast of San Antonio and about 95 kilometres southwest of Austin. One worker reported ringing in her ears and was treated at the scene.
Local and federal authorities confirmed that blast was related to four others since March 2.
Later that day, police sent a bomb squad to a FedEx facility outside the Austin airport to check on a suspicious package.
Federal agencies and police later said that package had indeed contained an explosive that was successfully intercepted and that it, too, was tied to the other bombings. Authorities also closed off an Austin-area FedEx store where they believe the bomb that exploded in Schertz was shipped. They roped off a large area around the shopping centre in the enclave of Sunset Valley and were collecting evidence.
The Schertz blast came two days after a bombing wounded two men on Monday in a quiet Austin neighbourhood about 5km from the FedEx store. It was triggered by a nearly invisible tripwire, suggesting a ‘‘higher level of sophistication’’ than agents saw in three package bombs previously left on doorsteps, according to Fred Milanowski, the agent in charge of the Houston division of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.