With every shift in tactics, fear spread as the attacks got increasingly unpredictable. They were analyzing Conditt’s internet history to find out how he learned to make bombs. The first three victims were minorities. The package was found by law enforcement on Tuesday and did not explode. The 39-year-old father worked as a project manager for Texas Quarries.
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“The most recent chain of events have brought some sense of closure that our beloved has received justice, and we are prayerful that we can now start to move forward with our lives”, said the statement obtained by CNN affiliate KEYE.
Michael Luna, a witness staying at the hotel who is ex-military, tells KXAN the blast sounded like two grenades going off.
He was an accomplished musician with plans to continue playing the double bass in college, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Had he been African-American you can be that he would be called a thug or a gang banger or just a criminal. Both their packages were not delivered by commercial carriers, police said.
Once police disarmed and removed devices from the home, residents were allowed to go back to their homes.
A spokesman for the ATF said Federal Bureau of Investigation and Austin Police Department bomb technicians have cleared the house and a national response team was performing a sweep of the residence.
The bomber shifted tactics again Sunday. “We then brace ourselves for the public punishment and collective blame for a crime we didn’t commit if the perpetrator happens to share a dimension of our identity”. The suspect, who has blonde hair, is wearing a baseball cap and can be seen carrying two packages.
He also blamed himself for tipping police off by sending the explosive packages via FedEx and being caught on camera.
Regardless of the spotty social media history, Abbott said authorities will investigate “digital information”.
This 2010 student ID photo released by Austin Community College shows Mark Anthony Conditt, who attended classes there between 2010 and 2012.
Images from a local FedEx office show him using pink gloves when he mailed the boxes.
Officials say the 23-year-old Conditt blew himself up in his vehicle overnight as authorities closed in on him. Investigators haven’t named them, saying they weren’t under arrest.
It was not until later that they traced his vehicle to the Courtyard by Marriott in nearby Round Rock. By Wednesday police had tracked him to a hotel and officers trailed his auto. Conditt ran into a ditch on the side of the road, and SWAT officers approached, banging on his window.
Manley also emphasized that the confession didn’t detail any specific racially or politically motivated agenda behind the string of bombings that killed two and injured four people in Austin since March 2.
It was not immediately clear whether Conditt was killed by the explosives or the gunfire. Conditt’s other roomate, who was also detained Wednesday, has already been released.
Later on Wednesday, police said they found a 25-minute video on the suspect’s cellphone.
Police have given no indication so far that the bomber had any accomplices.
Chief Brian Manley of the Austin Police Department tells ABC News, “On this recording, the suspect describes the six bombs that he constructed with a level of specificity that he identified the differences among those six bombs”. That’s not only the common sense understanding of terrorism but I’d argue fulfills the definition of terrorism under the federal law since Conditt clearly used his bombings to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population”.
Within seconds, the suspect had detonated a bomb inside his vehicle, blasting the officers backward, Manley said.
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On Wednesday, The Washington Post headlined its profile of Conditt by referring to him as “frustrated”, and led with an idyllic description of the bomber’s hometown, before offering a gentle account of his “quiet and shy” demeanor.
