By Edward Trower-
A Texas bomb has killed a 17-year-old boy an badly injured after what is believed to be a package bomb exploded at a home in the Austin neighborhood of Windsor Park.
Manley said investigators haven’t determined a motive for the attacks, but it is possible that the victims could have been targeted because they are black.
“We don’t know what the motive behind these may be,” Manley said. “We do know that both of the homes that were the recipients of these packages belong to African-Americans, so we cannot rule out that hate crime is at the core of this. But we’re not saying that that’s the cause as well.”
Monday’s blast is believed to be connected to the blast last week that killed a 39 year old man. The latest bombing happened about 20 kilometres from where a March 2 package bombing killed a 39-year-old man.
The first blast was initially being investigated as a suspicious death but is now viewed as a homicide. One of the reasons investigators believe the attacks are related, is because in both cases, the packages were left overnight on the victims’ doorsteps and were not mailed or sent by a delivery service.
Authorities are investigating whether race was involved in the bombings because the victims of the first two blasts were African-American.
“There are similarities that we cannot rule out that these two items are, in fact, related,” Austin’s police chief, Brian Manley said early Monday.
Monday’s incident happened as thousands of visitors headed into the city for the South by Southwest music, film and technology festival which brings about 400,000 visitors to Austin each year. The explosions occurred far from the main events of the festival
PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
Additional precautionary measures were taken four years ago in 2014 after a driver plowed through a barricade and into festival-goers killing four people and injuring many others. Extra policing and brighter lightening were implemented to increase safeguards in the wake of that explosion.
The three explosions occurred in different parts of east Austin. Monday’s first explosion happened at a home near the city’s Windsor Park neighborhood and about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the home where the March 2 package bomb killed 39-year-old Anthony Stephan House. The March 2 blast was initially investigated as a suspicious death, but is now viewed as a homicide.
Manley said investigators believe the March 2 and Monday’s first attack are related because in both cases the packages were left overnight on the victims’ doorsteps and were not mailed or sent by a delivery service. He also said the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t have a record of delivering the package to the home where Monday’s explosion occurred, and that private carriers like UPS and FedEx also indicated that they had none, either.
“There are similarities that we cannot rule out that these two items are, in fact, related,” Manley said.
Manley said investigators haven’t determined a motive for the attacks, but it is possible that the victims could have been targeted because they are black.
“We don’t know what the motive behind these may be,” Manley said. “We do know that both of the homes that were the recipients of these packages belong to African-Americans, so we cannot rule out that hate crime is at the core of this. But we’re not saying that that’s the cause as well.”