A teenager was killed and at least two women were seriously hurt after a pair of explosions rocked homes in Austin on Monday — just two weeks after a third blast which authorities said is linked to at least one of Monday’s incidents.
Austin Police said they received a call about the first explosion in a neighborhood on the northeast side of the city around 6:45 a.m., after the 17-year-old resident found a package on the front step, brought it inside, and opened it in the kitchen where it exploded.
“It is very similar to the incident that occurred in Austin on March 2,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters.
Manley said authorities don’t believe the package came from a delivery through the U.S. Postal Service, and the placement on the home’s front doorstep also indicated a similarity to the blast earlier this month.
“We believe these cases are linked at this time,” Manley said.
The Austin-Travis County EMS tweeted that a teenage male was killed and a woman in her 40s was taken to the hospital. Manley said she had non-life threatening injuries.
Multiple #ATCEMS @Austin_Police @AustinFireInfo onscene of a reported explosion at 4800 block of Oldfort Hill Dr (06:44); 2 pts identified thus far with Medics obtaining DOS pronouncement of late teens Male & ~40's F txpt'd to DSMC w/serious potentially life threat inj's. MTF…
— ATCEMS (@ATCEMS) March 12, 2018
FBI agents could be seen going around the neighborhood, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it responded to the scene.
But just minutes after Manley’s news conference finished, a separate explosion was reported around 11:49 a.m. in the Montopolis neighborhood, located southeast of downtown Austin. That blast left a woman in her 70’s with “life-threatening” injuries, officials said. The Austin-Travis County EMS said on Twitter a second woman in her 80’s was being treated for an “unrelated medical issue.” Authorities have not yet said if this incident is related to the prior two package bombings but Fox News confirmed the third explosion also involved a package.
APD responding to a reported explosion in the 6700 block of Galindo Street. The incident number is 180710681. The call came in as a nature unknown urgent at 11:50 this morning. PIO is en route and will tweet briefing time and location once determined. NOI
— Austin Police Department (@Austin_Police) March 12, 2018
Damage inside the home from the early morning blast is “significant,” according to Manley, who added investigators are going to nearby homes to see if any outdoor surveillance footage exists.
Neighbor Cynthia Burdett, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1999 and close to the home where the blast took place, told FOX 7 she was in “total shock” and the whole incident was “very scary.”
“I checked my house first of all to make sure nothing was on fire, I did look outside at that point and next thing I knew police were knocking at the door saying that there was a suspicious package, one had exploded and that I needed to leave the house,” she told reporters.
She said her neighbors are very good neighbors, “church-going” people who are “a very good family.”
Manley said the blast bore a resemblance to the March 2 explosion that killed one man.
Church goers I wonder if the others were church goers also