It’s unclear whether a series of deadly package explosions in Austin are racially motivated. But until people of color in the Texas capital know more, they will feel threatened, resident Chas Moore said.
Three package bombs exploded at homes in Austin over 10 days — one on March 2 and two on Monday — killing two people and injuring two others. Police said they are considering the possibility the explosions were hate crimes because the victims were African-American and Hispanic. But they emphasized they do not yet know the motive.
“We do feel targeted. Until it happens to somebody that is not a person of color I think that is going to remain the same,” said Moore, executive director of the Austin Justice Coalition, a grassroots organization that addresses criminal, economic and social justice.
Part of that feeling has to do with the victims’ identities, he said. It also comes from a racial divide seldom acknowledged in a city known as a liberal beacon in a red state. As more wealthy, college-educated professionals make the city their home, people of color are being pushed out of historically black neighborhoods such as East Austin, where two of the bombings occurred.
“Austin is a liberal city but it’s liberal to a max,” Moore said. “We still have black and brown people who have been pushed out of the east side.”
To alleviate concerns that have arisen from the explosions, Moore’s group is hosting a town hall on Thursday. Austin’s mayor and police chief are expected to attend the event, which members of the community requested, Moore said.
“In times of tragedy, we just want to create a space where people can come and talk and come vent,” Moore said.
Seeking community-based solutions
Police initially regarded the first bombing as an isolated incident. Then, after the second two, investigators said they believed all three were related.
The second blast, reported at 6:44 a.m. Monday, killed Draylen Mason, 17, a bright student and talented musician who was “going places,” neighbor Jesse Washington said. The blast awoke Washington.
“How was that house picked? We’re right next door, we got several vacant homes,” Washington said Thursday outside his home.
A retired city of Austin code enforcement inspector and Navy veteran, Washington said he is reserving judgment on whether the attacks were hate crimes. But after the last two on Monday, “That question is kind of in the back of my mind,” he said.
“There’s a part of me that says it very well could be.”
People are not necessarily living in fear of the next possible bombing, Moore said. But they are looking for community-based solutions to preventing another explosion, which is what the town hall is for, he said.
Moore believes the second and third bombings could have been prevented with help from the community. When people know their neighbors, they might be more inclined to reach out to them when they see something suspicious at their homes, such as a package, he said.
“When it comes to public safety we have to stop assuming that the police is the end-all-be-all. Public safety is also part of communities being empowered to protect and govern themselves,” he said.
“We as a society, we as individuals, we have to own up to some of that responsibility and make sure that our neighbors and family and friends close by are also protected,” he said.
How the incidents unfolded
The explosions left city residents on edge and suspicious of packages delivered to their homes.
The packages were placed in front of the residents’ houses, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said. They appeared to be “average-sized delivery boxes, not exceptionally large,” Manley said.
None of the cardboard packages was delivered by the US Postal Service or delivery services such as UPS or FedEx, police said. The packages were left in the overnight hours.
The first went off on the morning of March 2, killing Anthony Stephan House, a 39-year-old African-American man. He picked up the package outside his home in north Austin.
The second occurred inside Draylen Mason’s home. Someone found the package on the front doorstep, brought it inside and tried to open it in the kitchen. Mason’s mother suffered non-life threatening injuries.
The third explosion happened around noon Monday, seriously injuring a 75-year-old Hispanic woman, police said. The blast happened after she found the package on a porch and picked it up; it wasn’t immediately clear if the woman was the intended target, police said.
The package that exploded indoors yielded parts that could be reconstructed, a law enforcement source told CNN on condition of anonymity. The devices were essentially pipe bombs rigged to explode upon opening, the source said.
Police have encouraged Austin residents to be suspicious of packages they weren’t expecting, and people have responded.
Austin police say they’ve received 495 calls about suspicious packages since Monday morning, though police haven’t indicated any subsequent check revealing anything alarming.
The blasts
Manley on Tuesday defended downplaying the first bombing. He said investigators initially believed it was in retaliation against police for raiding a “drug stash house” on the same street a few days earlier. Because the color of the raided home resembles House’s residence, investigators believed “they simply got the wrong house,” Manley said.
He did not elaborate on why investigators believed someone would have wanted to retaliate against a home that police had raided.
House and Mason had relatives who know each other. House was the stepson of Freddie Dixon, a former pastor at a historic black church in Austin, and Dixon and his wife are close friends with Mason’s family, according to the teenager’s grandmother, Lavonne Mason.
Local police as well as the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are working on the case. Rewards totaling $65,000 have been offered for information leading to the arrest of the person or person involved in the package blasts, police said.