Tag Archives: Austin

Deadly blast in Texas believed linked to earlier explosion

An FBI agent exits her car after arriving at the scene of an explosion near north Galindo street. Police investigators are at the home where a 17-year-old boy was killed and a woman injured in a package bomb explosion in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flo

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A package bomb that killed a Texas teenager and injured a woman on Monday was believed to be linked to a deadly blast in the state’s capital city earlier this month, according to police, who were also investigating a third explosion that injured one.

Austin police said Monday’s package bomb that killed a 17-year-old, as well as a March 2 explosion that killed a man, were being investigated as homicides. The two homes that received the packages belonged to African-Americans.

“We cannot rule out that hate crime is at the core of this but we are not saying that that is the cause,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told a news conference.

Isiah Guerrero, 15, gives an interview to the media in the neighbourhood of the scene of an explosion. Police investigators are at the home where a 17-year-old boy was killed and a woman injured in a package bomb explosion in Austin, Texas, U.S., March 12, 2018. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

Police said they responded to a second explosion of a package on Monday at another home in which a woman was injured. A police spokeswoman was unable to confirm if it was related to the other two explosions.

Monday’s blasts were in homes about 4 miles (6 km) apart in east Austin, while the March 2 blast occurred at house in the city’s northeast Harris Ridge neighborhood.

The March 2 blast, which killed a 39-year-old man, was initially investigated as a suspicious death but is now being treated as a homicide.

In the deadly blast on Monday, the 17-year-old resident found a package in front of his house in the morning and brought it into the kitchen, where it exploded, Manley said. The woman, in her 40s, was taken to an area hospital with injuries that were not thought to be life-threatening.

“We are looking at these incidents as being related,” Manley said, adding that federal investigators have joined the case.

After the March 2 explosion, Austin police said they had no indication the blast was related to terrorism.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Andrew Hay; Editing by Susan Thomas and Tom Brown)

Texas university removes ‘white supremacy’ statues overnight

Workers remove Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan statue from the south mall of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, U.S., August 21, 2017.

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – The University of Texas at Austin removed the statues of three Confederate-era figures from a main area on campus on Monday, saying they had become symbols of white supremacy and that they were taken down overnight to avoid confrontations.

Violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12 when white nationalists protesting against the planned removal of a statue of Confederate military leader Robert E. Lee clashed with anti-racism demonstrators. One woman was killed when a suspected white nationalist drove his car into a crowd.

President Donald Trump’s reaction to the events has drawn widespread anger from across the political spectrum. Trump did not immediately condemn white nationalists and said there were “very fine people” on both sides, prompting several chief executives to quit his business councils in protest.

“Last week, the horrific displays of hatred at the University of Virginia and in Charlottesville shocked and saddened the nation,” University of Texas at Austin President Greg Fenves said in a statement.

“These events make it clear, now more than ever, that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”

Fenves announced the removal of the statues shortly before midnight on Sunday. By about 3 a.m. local time on Monday, they had all been taken down, said Cindy Posey, director of campus safety communications. It was done at night as a safety measure to avoid confrontations, she said.

A growing number of U.S. political leaders are calling for the removal of statues honoring the Confederacy, saying they promote racism. Supporters of keeping the statues in place contend they are a reminder of Southern heritage and the country’s history.

The statues of three Confederate figures and a former governor removed from the university’s main mall were “erected during the period of Jim Crow laws and segregation” and “represent the subjugation of African Americans,” the university president said.

The statues include depictions of Lee, who led the pro-slavery Confederacy’s army, of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston and of Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan.

Those three will be moved to the school’s Briscoe Center for American History, where they will be accessible for scholarly study, Fenves said.

Onlookers watch as Confederate statues are removed from the south mall of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, U.S., August 21, 2017.

Onlookers watch as Confederate statues are removed from the south mall of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Spillman

Workers also removed a statue of former Governor James Stephen Hogg, who led Texas from 1891 to 1895, years after the Civil War ended in 1865. It will be considered for re-installation at another university site, Fenves said.

Several cities have targeted Confederate symbols in response to the violence in Charlottesville. They include Baltimore, Maryland, which removed four monuments to the Confederacy in a pre-dawn operation last week, and Birmingham, Alabama, where the mayor vowed to seek the removal of a Confederate monument in his city.

On Saturday, Duke University removed a statue of Lee from the entrance of a chapel on the Durham, North Carolina, campus.

 

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)