Deadly Austin bombings were ‘meant to send a message,’ police chief says

boozeman

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Deadly Austin bombings were ‘meant to send a message,’ police chief says
by Tim Stelloh

A deadly string of unsolved bombings in Texas this month was "meant to send a message," though Austin Police Chief Brian Manley didn't say what that message was during a Sunday news conference.

Manley said that he hoped the bomber was watching and would "reach out to us before anyone else is injured or killed."



The plea came as local and federal authorities increased the reward for information leading to a conviction in the bombings, which killed two and injured two others earlier this month, to $100,000, Manley said. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was also offering $15,000.

Late Sunday, Austin police were investigating an explosion in a neighborhood in the southwestern part of the city. Authorities said that two men in their 20s sustained non-life-threatening injuries and that they were still examining a suspicious backpack in the area.

The nature of the explosion wasn't immediately clear, and there was no immediate indication that it was connected to the package bombings that killed Stephen House and Draylen Mason. Both men were African-American members of the same church, Nelson Linder, the local NAACP chapter president, told NBC News last week.

House, 39, was killed on the morning of March 2, while Mason, 17, died on the morning of March 12.

Mason's 41-year-old mother was critically injured in the explosion. Just before noon that Monday, a third bombing critically injured a 75-year-old Hispanic woman, Esperanza Herrera.

Linder added that someone connected to the House or Mason families was the intended target in the third explosion, although he declined to provide additional details.

Asked Sunday whether the bombings were racially motivated, Manley said it's possible.

"We don't have any evidence," he said. "What we know for certain is: We have three victims that are victims of color, and we have three package bombs that have exploded on the east side of Austin," where many of the city's minority residents live.

Brian Jenkins, an analyst with Rand Corp. who has studied bombings, said in an interview that Manley's invitation to contact authorities could prove fruitful.
He pointed to the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more during a bombing campaign that lasted two decades, and his "desire to communicate, to have some kind of pronouncement or manifesto."

"He made the offer that he'd suspend his campaign if his manifesto was published," Jenkins said. "The publication of that ultimately led to him being identified."

Communication from Muharem Kurbegovic, who was convicted of a bombing that killed three people at Los Angeles International Airport in 1974, helped police narrow their search and apprehend him, Jenkins said.

Such bombings aren't easy to solve without communication — or without more "events" to provide more clues, Jenkins said.
"This isn't like a convenience store holdup," he said.

There can be few witnesses. Patterns can be difficult to detect. Evidence can be destroyed in the explosion.

"This requires reconnaissance," he said. "This requires target selection. They have to think about building a device that works. They have to build that device. They have to think about delivering that device in a way that enables them to conceal their identity."

A key question, Jenkins said, is determining what motivated the bomber or bombers. Were the attacks a one-off event driven by personal grievance — or were they the beginning of something larger?

"These individuals who become serial bombers — they start campaigns and we don't necessarily understand what their campaigns are," he said. "Motives that seem reasonable to them are not discernible to us."

In 2002, for instance, Lucas Helder planted bombs in mailboxes across the United States in an arrangement that would allow someone looking at the United States from space to see a smiley face.

"Those are things that are not easy for outsiders to figure out," Jenkins said.
 

Cotton

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Why does EVERYTHING immediately have to be about race?
 

L.T. Fan

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Why does EVERYTHING immediately have to be about race?
Unfortunately radical people have staged protests etc., in order to create racially bigoted atmosphere. Their mission is to polarize people and unwittedly people fall right in line to perpetuate it. If most people didnt react to this and other divisive ploys there would be a lot less attention paid to it. The media is absolutely the largest fulelers of this flame.
 

Cotton

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Well, this one likely could be.
Notice that the article doesn't give the skin color of the two other men that were injured? Why? Because they were white and would show the obvious hole in their race-baiting agenda. The MSM has never been worse than it is right now.
 

skidadl

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I want to say that someone in law enforcement has said that all of the bombings have hit people of color.
 

Cotton

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Kbrown

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Why does EVERYTHING immediately have to be about race?
Well there is a whole underground of white supremacists out there. The Tim McVeigh kind, not the "anyone who says something a liberal on Twitter doesn't like" kind.

That said, I bet this turns out to be someone who knew these people personally and had a grudge.
 

Cotton

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Well there is a whole underground of white supremacists out there. The Tim McVeigh kind, not the "anyone who says something a liberal on Twitter doesn't like" kind.

That said, I bet this turns out to be someone who knew these people personally and had a grudge.
I understand that, and we need to focus on those people instead of throwing up racist flags at every turn when the situation has nothing to do with race. It dilutes the word.
 

Cotton

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boozeman

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Well there is a whole underground of white supremacists out there. The Tim McVeigh kind, not the "anyone who says something a liberal on Twitter doesn't like" kind.

That said, I bet this turns out to be someone who knew these people personally and had a grudge.
That is likely too, fits the profile. Yeah, I just watched Manhunter again.
 

bbgun

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I understand that, and we need to focus on those people instead of throwing up racist flags at every turn when the situation has nothing to do with race. It dilutes the word.
When whites are killed, no one suspects racism. See: Unabomber victims. But blacks ...
 

Angrymesscan

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When whites are killed, no one suspects racism. See: Unabomber victims. But blacks ...
Well there is also the part where whites still make up the majority of the population, so it does kinda stand out more when all victims come from a minority.
That and I think when it's defined as serial it's called a type?
 

jsmith6919

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skidadl

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The 5th bomb goes off 15 minutes from my house...
 

jsmith6919

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