Austin on edge: Residents ordered to stay indoors after two men are seriously injured in the FOURTH explosion this month as police appeal to package bomber who has killed two to surrender
Explosion was reported in residential area of southwest Austin on Sunday night
Two men were transported with serious but non-life threatening injuries
Police say they believe the explosive device was triggered by a tripwire
Residents in the Travis Country area are advised to remain inside until 10am
It follows a string of package bombs that killed two in Austin in the past month
Police said latest attack showed ‘different level of skill’ than the package bombs
Police chief publicly appealed to bomber to share their ‘message’ earlier Sunday
A security expert has described the bomber as ‘crafty’ and clearly watched the news because the fourth bombing ocurred after the reward was raising to $115k
By SARA MALM
DAILYMAIL.COM
19 March 2018
An explosion in Austin that injured two men on bicycles forced police to warn nearby residents to remain indoors overnight as investigators looked for links to three other package bombings in the city this month.
The latest blast occurred around 8.30pm on Sunday in a southwestern Austin residential neighborhood known as Travis Country.
The explosion seriously injured two white men in their 20s when they are believed to have triggered a tripwire when they were pushing or riding their bikes down a sidewalk.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told Good Morning America that the latest attack showed ‘a different level of skill’ than the package bombs used in the three prior attacks.
‘It is very possible that this device was activated by someone either handling, kicking or coming in contact with a tripwire that activated the device,’ Chief Manley said in an early morning press briefing on Monday.
‘We do believe, based on what we have seen, that it was a bomb that exploded.
‘We do not believe that this was, as previously, a package left on doorstep, but that this was some type of suspicious package that was left on the side of the road and that detonated and injured these two men.
‘We are working under the belief that they are connected to the previous bombings.’
Residents in the Travis Country area were ordered to stay in their homes until Monday morning and no school buses were going to drive through the area to pick up children.
Manley said authorities would keep the surrounding area blocked off until further notice because of overnight darkness and the ‘size of the area that we want to go in and check.’
Police kept residential streets on lockdown, gradually expanding their barricades and closing off all roads into the neighborhood.
Before daybreak on Monday, Austin police pushed another alert to cellphones advising residents to continue staying indoors and to call 911 if they needed to leave their homes before 10am.
Manley also said authorities had worked to ‘clear’ a suspicious backpack found in the area that was part of a separate report.
‘We want to put out the message that we’ve been putting out and that is, not only do not touch any packages or anything that looks like a package, do not even go near it at this time,’ Manley said.
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