Exploding Packages: Why?

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Shanti

Momketeer
Joined
Nov 29, 2015
This isn't a question. It's a vent. I don't know why some people are so hateful and cruel, how they got that way, why our world is so unsafe. It's just so unfortunate.

As of today three explosive-laden packages have been left on unsuspecting families' doorsteps in minority neighborhoods in my hometown of Austin. Two people are dead (one a teen), and two (including an elderly lady) are seriously injured.

Everyone here has to be careful to walk out their front door, careful to look at packages left on our doorsteps (which is how most of us receive normal packages here) & call the cops if they're unexpected or appear to be unlabeled. We have to tell the kids not to touch any dropped-off packages. Who knows how long this will go on? Police think the explosions are related, and the latest one occurred weeks after the first. So we won't be letting our guard down anytime soon.

Why? :(
 
This isn't a question. It's a vent. I don't know why some people are so hateful and cruel, how they got that way, why our world is so unsafe. It's just so unfortunate.

As of today three explosive-laden packages have been left on unsuspecting families' doorsteps in minority neighborhoods in my hometown of Austin. Two people are dead (one a teen), and two (including an elderly lady) are seriously injured.

Everyone here has to be careful to walk out their front door, careful to look at packages left on our doorsteps (which is how most of us receive normal packages here) & call the cops if they're unexpected or appear to be unlabeled. We have to tell the kids not to touch any dropped-off packages. Who knows how long this will go on? Police think the explosions are related, and the latest one occurred weeks after the first. So we won't be letting our guard down anytime soon.

Why? :(
Mental illness.
 
That's such an awful situation. Stay safe, Shanti. As to your question... it's hard to say. But I think of a song from the musical South Pacific: "You've got to be taught before it's too late, before you are six or seven or eight. To hate all the people your relatives hate. You've got to be carefully taught." There are too many people who live in ignorance... and ignorance becomes fear, and fear becomes hate.
 




Unabomber
No... Not that one. I'll look it up.

ETA- Okay yes that one. But in my mind, I was combining the Unabomber and a case where a judge and wife had a mail bomb delivered to them. I was thinking of the instance with the judge, but in my minds eye I was thinking Unabomber.

I don't know if that makes any sense but I haven't been properly caffeinated yet!
 
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No... Not that one. I'll look it up.

ETA- Okay yes that one. But in my mind, I was combining the Unabomber and a case where a judge and wife had a mail bomb delivered to them. I was thinking of the instance with the judge, but in my minds eye I was thinking Unabomber.

I don't know if that makes any sense but I haven't been properly caffeinated yet!

Get that coffee girl
 
There have been a number of notable such cases beyond the "Unabomber". When I was growing up we had the "Speedway Bomber" in Indianapolis, who left a number of homemade bombs around that part of Indy. The culprit was an heir of a family that owned a local department store chain and no real motive was ever established by the police, but one theory was to distract police from working a murder case that the bomber was a possible suspect.

Here is another one from last December in Oakland, CA.
 
If you can call hatred a mental illness, then maybe. Like I said, it wasn't a question. Given the neighborhoods this occurred in and the races of the victims, police suspect that these are hate crimes, and that does seem very likely.

I just don't get the hate.
Personally, I would wait for more information before I would become too invested in that theory for the motive of the murder. As more details are discovered, reality could cause things to take a sharp turn. I've also read that the police have backed off the initial speculation that these are "hate crimes", but they also haven't ruled anything out at this point in time.
 
Personally, I would wait for more information before I would become too invested in that theory for the motive of the murder. As more details are discovered, reality could cause things to take a sharp turn. I've also read that the police have backed off the initial speculation that these are "hate crimes", but they also haven't ruled anything out at this point in time.
That's inaccurate. There hasn't been any statement that the police are "backing off" speculation that these are hate crimes. Please cite your source.
 
That's inaccurate. There hasn't been any statement that the police are "backing off" speculation that these are hate crimes. Please cite your source.
Fox News/AP, posted 2 hours ago:
Both of those explosions are thought to be linked to a March 2 blast that killed a black man. With all the victims of the blasts so far being minorities, investigators are looking into whether race is a factor. However, officials backed off initial suggestions that hate crimes could be a core cause.

"We are not ruling anything out at this point," Manley said at a news conference.
Sounds to be like they are being prudent at this point in time.
 
Fox News/AP, posted 2 hours ago:Sounds to be like they are being prudent at this point in time.
Your link was a Fox News article (not quoted from AP), so your only source is Fox, and Fox News is a very biased news outlet.

Our local newspaper, the Austin American Statesman, as well as other mainstream news outlets, haven't reported that at all. To the contrary, it's a motive the police are seriously considering.
 
I have a guess as to "why" and that word is "hate".

This is Anthony, the first one killed.

anthony.JPG

Subsequent attacks have all been people of color.

Here is a map of the neighborhoods where the incidents took place:
mao.JPG

Using city-data.com, one of my go-to tools, I pulled the following maps of Austin. The darker the area the higher the percentage. Feel free to replicate.

ba.JPG h.JPG

It's not a secret that the division and hatred in our country is pretty high right now. Do I think someone was strategic enough to look at maps like this and plot? Likely not. But I do think it's possible that someone observed which neighborhoods had which kinds of people in them and reacted to that. Not knowing all of the victims names to ascertain any other connections, etc. this seems like the most viable one at the moment. Of course, please take this with the consideration that investigations are ongoing and I am speculating.

Articles like this one, released by a local Austin news-source earlier this year increase my bad feelings that this may be the case:

http://kxan.com/2018/01/15/african-americans-are-moving-to-austin-again-but-many-dont-feel-welcome/

I've read other pieces on the area over the years speaking to the racial division seen on the west and east side of the I-35. The data above only strengthens the validity of that observation.

Honestly, it just makes me sick. It's like a perpetual state of being anymore. Very sorry for all the months and years of trauma ahead for all impacted by this latest development.
 
Your link was a Fox News article (not quoted from AP), so your only source is Fox, and Fox News is a very biased news outlet.

Our local newspaper, the Austin American Statesman, as well as other mainstream news outlets, haven't reported that at all. To the contrary, it's a motive the police are seriously considering.

Fox has a lot more credibility than the Austin American Statesman.

Also I'm not sure why you are so angry about Geoff not jumping to conclusions.
 
Your link was a Fox News article (not quoted from AP), so your only source is Fox, and Fox News is a very biased news outlet.
If you look at the bottom of the Fox story it states that it incorporated material from the AP and appears to be based on overnight updates from the police. Here's the original story, straight from the AP, without any "taint" from Fox:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Three package bombs left on doorsteps in suburban neighborhoods have exploded in less than two weeks in Texas’ capital city, killing two people, wounding two others and leaving investigators vowing to look at any possible explanation for a motive.

Police said the bombings in eastern Austin — two Monday and one on March 2 — are likely linked. All the victims were minorities, and investigators are looking into whether race was a factor. However, they backed off initial suggestions that hate crimes could be a core cause.
The Austin police Chief, Brian Manley, later added:
At first Manley suggested that the blasts could constitute a hate crime, but later amended that to say authorities had not settled on a motive since the intended targets weren’t clear because multiple people live in the homes where explosives were placed. He also said they may possibly have been left at the wrong addresses.

“We are not ruling anything out at this point,” Manley said.

You seem to think that the story, and I, am trying to say that this is not a hate crime. That is not true by any stretch. It may very well be related 100% to racial animus. But then again, it that might not turn out to be the case. We all don't know what we don't know about who or what is behind this. "Hatred" is likely a motivating factor, but we don't know what's driving it. You can speculate all you'd like about it being about race, but it's just that at this point in time... speculation. The police seem to have wisely opted to not just work the case in just that one direction. I have no doubt that they'll follow things where the evidence leads them.

Not long ago, I watched a documentary segment of the first example of package bombs that were sent through the mail. They were disguised as gifts of boxes of cigars. At first the police couldn't find any connection to the victims, but then realized that a member of each household had been involved, in different capacities, in a past miner's strike that was very nasty. Based on that connection, postal inspectors were able to trace the bombs back to a disgruntled miner who accused his union's leadership with colluding with the mine owners, and aided unfairly by the local courts, to put down wildcat coal strikes.
 
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It certainly looks racially motivated, but I don't think law enforcement should be making that type of announcement at this time. Sample size is low, but 2 out of 3 packages went to black homes, when that race only makes up about 8% of the population of Austin? Third home was hispanic/latino, which represents about 35% of the population.

Maybe it's not. Probably it is. But you don't want to make that type of announcement and spark panic.
 
It certainly looks racially motivated, but I don't think law enforcement should be making that type of announcement at this time. Sample size is low, but 2 out of 3 packages went to black homes, when that race only makes up about 8% of the population of Austin? Third home was hispanic/latino, which represents about 35% of the population.

Maybe it's not. Probably it is. But you don't want to make that type of announcement and spark panic.
The police made the statement, but it's not like no one else in town was thinking of that. All of these explosions occurred in East Austin, which is a predominantly minority area of our town. For the three explosions to occur in that same part of town, hurting only minority residents, is something that everyone here noticed. The police can't ignore the possibliity of this being a hate crime, and they also probably feel the need to acknowledge that publicly, so that people in those neighborhoods know they are taking that potential motive seriously.

To get more specific, two of the houses attacked belonged to members of prominent families within the East Austin community. So there is a lot of reason for the police and everyone else to suspect a hate crime here.
 
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