Austin Bombing Suspect Dead

Interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley confirmed early Wednesday that the suspect in a string of bombings in Austin is dead.

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Manley said that police had tracked down the suspect’s vehicle to a hotel in the Round Rock area of Austin. The law enforcement team began following the vehicle, and as their SWAT team approached it, the suspect detonated a bomb in the car, killing him.

The suspect was identified only as a 24 year old white male.

The name of the suspect was not released because the family had not yet been notified according to Manley.

Manley also confirmed that police are still investigating the possibility of accomplices but do not have any leads in that direction.  “We believe this individual is responsible for all of the incidents in Austin,” Manley said.

Police are now requesting that the Austin community remain vigilant for possible other explosives because the suspect may have placed additional bombs around the area.  Manley made clear that “we do not know where (the suspect) has been in the past 24 hours.”

According to Manley they have not yet identified any motive for the string of bombings which had occurred recently in Austin.

The suspect had been identified yesterday based mostly on information police obtained after he shipped a package with a bomb in it from a FedEx store in Sunset Valley, a suburb of Austin. The primary piece of evidence was a security video, police said.

Additional evidence used by police included receipts from the store which showed transactions they deemed to be suspicious.  This allowed them to obtain a search warrant for his Google search history.  Reviewing his Google searches gave them more evidence of suspicious activity, police said.  

Authorities then used cell phone tracing technology to identify the suspect’s location as a hotel in Williamson County.

Four bombs, killing two men and injuring four people, have exploded in Austin since March 2. A fifth bomb exploded early Tuesday at a FedEx sorting facility in Schertz, Texas, which is located 60 miles southwest of Austin. 

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.