Austin bomber dead

We wake up to lots of good news this morning. First off, the fellow believed to be the Austin, Texas bomber pulled the trigger on himself, according to Fox News;

The suspect, identified by police early Wednesday as a 24-year old male, was killed near the motel he was traced to by authorities using surveillance footage from a Federal Express drop-off store and cell phone triangulation technology, according to The Austin American-Statesman.

The man died after fleeing the motel in a car, with police hot on his tail. He drove into a ditch, sparking the fatal confrontation.

“We wanted this to come to a peaceful resolution tonight,” said Austin Police Chief Brian Manley. “However, we were not afforded that opportunity when he started to drive away.”

Police said the man detonated two package bombs as police closed in, firing at him. It was not immediately clear whether he died from the bombs or shots fired by police. One officer was knocked back by the blasts, but none were seriously hurt.

Manley said police had zeroed in on a “person of interest” over the last 24-36 hours, tracing him to the motel in Round Rock, where the spotted his vehicle.

The bomber had managed to kill two men and injure four others in his ten day rampage in the Austin area. When police told the public that those packages hadn’t been mailed to the victims using normal package delivery carriers, he tried to shift his method of operation and send his bombs through FedEx. One detonated in a FedEx facility yesterday injuring an employee, and another was discovered and dismantled. Police were able to trace the bombs back to the point of origin and identified the bomber in security videos – and that led to the motel in Round Rock.

Meanwhile, someone else deposited an artillery simulator in a Goodwill Dropbox in Austin which detonated and injured a Goodwill employee. It probably wasn’t related to the bomber. From the Austin Statesman;

An employee of the Goodwill at 9801 Brodie Lane found an artillery simulator – a device meant to simulate the deafening “bang” noise of an explosion for the purposes of military training – in a box of donated items and it detonated in his hand, Austin police Assistant Chief Ely Reyes said. The victim, a man in his 30s, was treated at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center and released within a couple of hours, according to a hospital spokesperson.

It’s not clear whether the donation of the simulator was malicious, but Reyes noted that it is common for military-style mementos to find their way to donation sites if family members find them and don’t know what they are.

“We have no reason to believe this is an attempt at a copycat,” Reyes said.

Though not a bomb, the incident added another layer of fear to the jitters of a city that has seen four bombs explode this month, killing two people, a fifth that exploded at a FedEx in Schertz early Tuesday, and a sixth discovered and detonated safely at a FedEx ground facility in Southeast Austin Tuesday morning.

As far as I know, no one has made a statement that they know the motivations of any of the bombers.

Category: Crime