The Other McCain

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UPDATE: Austin Bomber Reportedly Dead After Shootout in Round Rock

Posted on | March 21, 2018 | 3 Comments

Breaking news:

An officer-involved shooting on Interstate 35 in Round Rock near Old Settlers Boulevard is related to the Austin bombing suspect, a source tells KXAN’s Sally Hernandez.
The source says the bomber blew up a device during the incident.
Round Rock police say while northbound I-35 is open, Southbound I-35 will be closed for the next four to six hours due to the investigation.

UPDATE: Tony Plohetski of the Austin American-Statesman reports:

Bombing suspect is dead, law enforcement sources confirm.
Officials say police traced suspect using mix of cell phone technology, security video, store receipts.
Sources say the suspect killed himself using an explosive device.

So the bomber who has terrorized Texas for weeks is dead.

UPDATE II: More background:

A man whom authorities were attempting to arrest early Wednesday in a string of bombing attacks in Austin killed himself with an explosive device as authorities closed in, a high-ranking law enforcement official told the American-Statesman early today.
The official said authorities identified a suspect in the past 24 hours based largely on information gained after police said the suspect shipped an explosive device from a FedEx store in Southwest Austin. That evidence included security video.
Authorities also relied upon store receipts showing suspicious transactions from the person and obtained a search warrant for his Google search history that showed him conducting searches they considered suspicious, the official said.
Authorities relied upon cell phone technology to trace the suspect to a hotel in Williamson County, the official said.

UPDATE III: All that is known about the bomber at this time (5:15 a.m. ET Wednesday) is that he was male. Because we don’t know the identity of the bomber, we do not yet know his motive. His first three bombings appeared to target black people, which raised suspicion of a racial motive, but the targets then shifted, and the motive is unknown.

UPDATE IV: At a press conference, the suspect was identified as a 24-year-old white male, but authorities declined to name him:

The suspect in a string of bombings in Austin is dead, interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley confirmed early Wednesday.
Investigators identified several leads but the case really broke in the past 24 to 36 hours, Manley said.
The chief described how authorities tracked down the suspect’s vehicle to a Round Rock-area hotel. Police began following the suspect’s vehicle, and as SWAT approached, the suspect detonated a bomb in the car, Manley said.
The name of the suspect, described only as a 24-year-old man, has not been released, pending notification of his family, Manley said.
Although police are still investigating the possibility of accomplices, he said, “we believe this individual is responsible for all of the incidents in Austin.”

UPDATE V: In an interview on Fox News. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the bomber was unemployed and lived in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville with two roommates. The suspect had no criminal record and there were “no red flags” on his social media that would have called him to law-enforcement attention, the governor said.

UPDATE VI: The bomber has been identified as Mark Conditt, a “nice kid from a great family.”

 

Category: Crime, Texas

Comments

3 Responses to “UPDATE: Austin Bomber Reportedly Dead After Shootout in Round Rock”

  1. Days of Rage Redux? | Rotten Chestnuts
    March 21st, 2018 @ 9:47 am

    […] The Austin Bomber is apparently dead (link to RS McCain’s roundup), and the forthcoming media frenzy will tell us a lot about how the next few years are going to go.  Austin PD has identified him as a white male, so there will be the usual calls for increased surveillance, thumbsuckers about toxic masculinity, whiteness, and so forth, but if he’s not just a random psycho — and this is our last, best hope — things are going to get ugly real fast. […]

  2. Texas Bomber Identified : The Other McCain
    March 21st, 2018 @ 11:06 am

    […] PREVIOUSLY: Austin Bomber Reportedly Dead After Shootout in Round Rock […]

  3. FMJRA 2.0: Voices Carry : The Other McCain
    March 24th, 2018 @ 11:50 pm

    […] UPDATE: Austin Bomber Reportedly Dead After Shootout in Round Rock Rotten Chestnuts EBL […]