Austin on Edge After Homemade Bombs Hidden as Package Deliveries Kill 2 People

AUSTIN, Texas — A mundane part of modern-day life and commerce — a package left on a doorstep — has set off waves of anxiety here in the Texas capital, after three packages with homemade bombs inside exploded and killed two people.

Since the authorities asked the public Monday to report any unexpected packages that did not come from an official distributor like the U.S. Postal Service, Austin police officials have received 265 calls from residents about suspicious packages. The police, who have said they believed the explosions are linked, responded to each report.

The flurry of 911 calls illustrated residents’ fears, particularly in the three neighborhoods where the packages exploded. The bomber appeared to have avoided mailing the packages and instead placed them by the victims’ front doors. On Tuesday, on the quiet Oldfort Hill Drive, where one of the devices detonated the day before, Tracy Nguyen, 32, an advertising employee who lives on the street, said she was “even afraid to check my mailbox,” adding, “I know that’s a little paranoid.”

In the span of 10 days in Austin, two people have been killed and three people injured in a series of package explosions so powerful that the reverberations shook the windows and walls blocks away. The suspect or suspects appear to have left the packages at three homes in the northeast and eastern sections of the city — one on March 2, and another two on Monday. Inside the packages were improvised explosive devices. In two of the bombings, the devices detonated when residents picked them up, and in the third, the package exploded after the person carried it into the house and opened it, officials said.

At a news conference Tuesday, Chief Brian Manley of the Austin Police Department told reporters that investigators were not ruling out that the attacks were terrorist acts or hate crimes. All of the deceased and wounded victims in the bombings were black or Hispanic. Earlier in the day, the mayor of Austin, Steve Adler, said it was too early in the investigation to establish the motive.

“It would be wrong at this point for our public safety folks to pick one direction before we have enough information, because that might mean that they would overlook something else,” Adler told reporters.

Two of the people killed after handling the packages were members of African-American families with deep roots in the city’s black, religious and civil-rights groups. Community leaders in Austin said the first fatal victim on March 2, Anthony Stephan House, 39, was the stepson of Freddie B. Dixon, 73, a retired United Methodist minister and civil rights advocate. The other fatal victim on Monday, Draylen Mason, 17, was the grandson of Norman L. Mason, a prominent dentist.

Dixon and the elder Mason have known each other for years: Dixon and Mason’s wife were among the founders of the Austin Area Urban League in the late 1970s.

“We’re not jumping to conclusions, but based on what’s known, we’re on heightened alert,” said Gary L. Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP and a lawyer who lives in Austin. He said he was being watchful of packages delivered both to his home and to his office.

“If it’s a package I’m not expecting, then I’m not going to open it,” Bledsoe said, adding, “and I’m telling everyone else to do the same thing. We don’t really know what’s happening, so the best thing to do is just not take possession of such a package.”

The 17-year-old who died Monday, Draylen Mason, was a promising classical musician who was set to enter the University of Texas’s Butler School of Music this fall to study music performance, a competitive program. A double bassist, he played in the orchestra at his high school, East Austin College Prep, as well as during church services Sundays. Since he was 11, he had been a member of the Austin Soundwaves, a youth orchestra program that taught music in underserved city schools that lacked music programs of their own.

He was “a remarkably and precociously talented bass player,” Doug Dempster, the dean of the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts, who serves on the program’s board, said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. During performances in recent years, Dempster said, he often noticed Draylen leading and coaching younger players.

“He was every inch a musician. He carried himself with a kind of quiet maturity that belied his youth,” Dempster said. “His gentle confidence seemed to come from a conviction that hard work and talent was going to work for him. It did.” On Tuesday, Manley said investigators were trying to determine what the victims had in common. “One of the key things we’re trying to understand — is there a connection between the victims, what is the victimology, what is the motive behind these attacks?” he said.

Earlier, Manley told KXAN in a television interview that building, transporting and delivering the devices to the homes without the bombs prematurely exploding showed “a level of skill.” The police chief added: “When the victims have picked these packages up, they have at that point exploded. There is a certain level of skill and sophistication that whoever is doing this has.”

The FBI, ATF and Postal Service have all sent specialists to help investigate the bombings. Manley encouraged the public to continue calling in tips and offered a combined $65,000 reward — $50,000 from the city and $15,000 from the state — for information leading to an arrest. In the neighborhood that was the scene of the first bombing, the redbrick home on Haverford Drive where the package exploded still has plywood covering the front door. The wall next to the door has an exposed gash, and the doorbell, still lit, dangles from a wire. Neighbors said that they had a heighten awareness of suspicious packages but that they were not changing their routines or behaviors a great deal.

“We’re not going to stop ordering packages,” said Don Shin, 40, a software developer who lives near the scene of the explosion on Haverford Drive. “We’re certainly going to be a lot more mindful of what we’re expecting and what we’re not expecting.”

Moments later, after Shin drove away with his wife and children, a sign of normalcy was visible at his door: a large box from Amazon.