AUSTIN — Local and federal authorities rushed Monday to respond to a pair of explosions in Austin, just days after a similar blast fatally injured a man in the Texas capital.
Police said that the three explosions — all of which involved packages left at homes — are believed to be connected. Authorities have also said they are exploring whether the blasts could be related to racial hatred, noting that two of the explosions have struck black victims and a third seriously injured an elderly Hispanic woman.
“Based on evidence that we have… these incidents are related,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said at a briefing. As for what might have motivated the explosions or prompted the blasts at these specific homes, he said: “We are not ruling anything out at this point.”
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The explosions set officials and residents alike on edge, with police urging residents to call 911 rather than opening unexpected packages. The pair of blasts Monday came 10 days after a package on the front porch of a northeast Austin home exploded on March 2, killing 39-year-old Anthony Stephan House.
At the time, police said his death was “suspicious” but believed it was an isolated incident with no continuing threat to the community.
On Monday, however, a pair of blasts rocked other areas of the city while it hosts South by Southwest, a 10-day music, film and technology conference that draws tens of thousands of visitors each year.
Early in the morning, authorities responded to a package explosion at a home on the east side of Austin and found two injured victims inside: A 17-year-old male and an adult woman. The 17-year-old died, while the woman was taken to the hospital with injuries, and police said they were investigating that incident as a homicide.
Five hours later, another explosion was reported in another residential area, this time in the city’s southeast region. A woman in her 70s was taken to an area hospital “with serious potentially life threatening injuries,” according to the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Service.
Relatives on the scene identified the woman injured in the third blast as Esperanza Herrera. They also said her mother, Maria Moreno, suffered minor injuries.
Manley — who reportedly was on the scene of Monday’s first explosion when he was called to the second — warned residents to avoid opening unexpected packages.
“If you receive a package that you are not expecting or looks suspicious, DO NOT open it, call 911 immediately,” he tweeted.
Authorities had said they believe the first two explosions are linked. Both took place in the morning hours, and in both cases, the package was not delivered through the U.S. Postal Service, authorities said.
In addition, both of the homes belonged to African Americans, Manley told reporters Monday morning.
“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,” the police chief said.
Nelson Linder, president of the NAACP of Austin, said the person injured in the third explosion was not African-American.
“There’s always concern about that,” Linder said of a potential hate crime, “but other than the two first victims’ race, there’s no evidence to say they were one at this time.”
