Authorities search for motive in Texas package bombings
Austin police chief says explosives made with ‘skill and sophistication’
Police and federal investigators continued searching Tuesday for answers about a string of packages that have exploded at homes in Austin, Texas, this month, killing two people, seriously injuring two others and unnerving the city at a time when it is flooded with visitors for the South by Southwest Festival.
While police have not provided specific details about the explosive devices, they have said the three packages that detonated at three homes several miles apart over an 11-day span appear to be related — and the work of a person or people who know what they are doing.
Austin police Chief Brian Manley said Tuesday that “the suspect or suspects that are building these devices” have been able to construct and deliver deadly bombs without setting them off at any point.
“When the victims have picked these packages up, they have at that point exploded,” Manley said on KXAN, an Austin television station. “There’s a certain level of skill and sophistication that whoever is doing this has.”
Precisely what motivated the bombings — which include one explosion on March 2 and then two blasts Monday morning — remained a mystery Tuesday, though officials have said they do not believe there is any connection between the bombings and the festival.
Investigators have said they are looking into connections between the victims themselves. The two people who were killed — an adult man and a teenage boy — were both related to prominent members of Austin’s African-American community, and they have relatives who are close, leading families to wonder whether race or these connections played some role.
Police have also said they are not sure if all of the people killed or injured were the intended targets of the explosives.
The most recent package to detonate injured an elderly Hispanic woman who was visiting her mother’s home — but the package was addressed to a different home nearby, according to two people familiar with the investigation. The woman who was injured may have been walking the package over to that address when it detonated, these people said.
This suggests that the explosive was not necessarily aimed at the injured woman, who has been identified by her relatives as Esperanza Herrera. The other two bombs killed people whose families have connections, and one of those victims’ relatives said he did not know of any connections to Herrera.
The Post could not immediately learn, though, whether the other two packages were addressed to the homes that received them, or whether they had any markings at all.
A spokeswoman for the Austin police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Police have told the community to use caution, telling residents to call 911 if they see a potentially suspicious or unexpected package. People across across Austin have heeded that warning, calling authorities about 150 times between Monday morning and Tuesday morning. Nothing dangerous was found after any of those calls, according to Manley.
Authorities said they were looking into whether the bombings could have been a hate crime, noting that the explosions killed two black people and wounded a Hispanic woman.
“Are you trying to say something to prominent AfricanAmerican families?” said Freddie Dixon, stepfather of Anthony Stephan House, the 39-year-old killed in the first explosion on March 2. “I don’t know who they’ve been targeting, but for sure, they went and got one of my best friend’s grandson. Somebody knew the connection.”
Dixon said he is good friends with Norman Mason, whose grandson was the teenager killed in the explosion early Monday morning.
The teenager has not been formally identified by police.
Mason’s wife, LaVonne, confirmed that her grandson was the 17-year-old victim but declined to comment further.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it was sending members of its National Response Team to help with the investigation.
Community organizers said they planned an event Friday night to help the community discuss what has been happening and potentially talk about raising money for more cameras in East Austin.
“People are angry and afraid,” Fatima Mann, an organizer, said Tuesday. “I refuse for people to have to go through life afraid because they don’t know if they’ll be next. This is an issue that should have been dealt with when the first explosion went off.”