The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Bombings in Austin
Bloods End
Blade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered User regular
Blade of TyshallePunch dimensionRegistered User regular
I didn't see a thread for this but last night there was a fourth bombing in Austin Texas
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/18/two-injured-in-explosion-in-austin-police-say/?utm_term=.459eeb0f32a7
All of which seem to be targeting black community leaders.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/austin-bombs-appear-to-be-targeting-prominent-black-families.html
So far there has been two deaths, and three people in the hospital.
In addition the Roots had to cancel a south by south west performance due to a bomb threat.
Despite the fact that this looks like domestic terrorism, there hasn't been a large media response for reasons that are probably way too obvious.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/18/two-injured-in-explosion-in-austin-police-say/?utm_term=.459eeb0f32a7
All of which seem to be targeting black community leaders.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/austin-bombs-appear-to-be-targeting-prominent-black-families.html
So far there has been two deaths, and three people in the hospital.
In addition the Roots had to cancel a south by south west performance due to a bomb threat.
Despite the fact that this looks like domestic terrorism, there hasn't been a large media response for reasons that are probably way too obvious.
+29
Posts
First question from the press was "why isn't this being called demostic terrorism?"
Answer essentially was: Because we don't know why the bombs are being left.
http://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/timeline-austin-package-bomb-attacks/1057954017
First bomb was March 2nd. Second and third was on March 12th. Fourth was last night.
Otherwise a Google search will bring up a timeline on every news service you can think of. Would you like fox news, cnn, msnbc, international news agency, or some local variety?
The latest victims were white I believe which is probably the only thing holding that back at the moment.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Is "for no apparent reason" not the most terror inducing motive?
pretty sure a terrorist by definition needs to be going for a specific political goal
Yeah the first two targeted some black people. The third one got a hispanic women I believe but the local NAACP said that bomb was also intended for a member of the same church/family as the first victims.
But then the fourth one seems to have just been left in the street and randomly blew up some cyclists. So it's unclear if there is a pattern and the final package just missed it's intended target, if there was a pattern and now it's broken as the killer has escalated or if there was never a pattern beyond something strange and/or personal to the killer.
We just can’t know from white Americans, can’t assume a terror context before we get all the details and a half-dozen more attacks
Fuck
I really dont expect this to break quickly. Its not surprising that once the word was out about packages on doorsteps that the tactics changed, and the locations are moving around the city map to make it harder to pinpoint a neighborhood. I'm starting to worry more and more, but trying to not to be unreasonable. I'll probably suspend some our neighborhood evening walks until they figure it out, though.
Also, I assume the concert bomb threat was a copy-cat. We got a bomb threat at my school during the DC sniper events, and I think it was just some asshole kid at the school.
Still seems like the better place to start. If you eventually find out these were just matters of love or business; send home the task force and downgrade. A terrorist ought to be defined by their methods more than their goals. See also: an otherwise peacful separatist political party vs. someone with a grudge and a bomb.
I'd rather we lump people like Dylan Roof in with ISIS as SOP, then try to explain why he's somehow different later.
Possible??? No details yet.
this could be a terrorist but since we don't know that yet, I'd rather just stick with the facts. That said, if law enforcement treated it like they would a terrorist situation, that'd probably be a good thing.
Disagree! It's actually good for the bomber not to get national attention.
It's all over the local news here.
As a resident of Montgomery County Maryland during that whole thing, I certainly felt terrorized.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
It's also not really a national news story. Or at least, it shouldn't be. It doesn't have any affect on my life in Wisconsin, so what good would it be to have CNN spend several hours talking about it?
I'm glad to hear it's getting a lot of local attention though.
To be clear, I would like this investigated like terrorism; not given the ironic, yet standard, press treatment aimed at trying to scare people.
It finally managed to get on my radar this morning, but I was doing a pretty deep-dive into the news, admittedly
Stay safe, my Austinites (I suspect this is not what you are called) :bro: and here's hoping whoever is doing this is apprehended before anyone else gets harmed
Make no mistake that if white people were being targeted (a la the Unabomber) this would be a much bigger story.
I'm sorry but all of Boston shut down for two blasts and there was nearly 24/7 coverage for three days. You're telling me FOUR explosions in Texas barely make a ripple? Parcel bombs being sent to people's homes?!
But they are not. As far as I'm aware, these have all been hand delivered packages and none of them have been sent through any postal service. This last one was left on the side of the street with a tripwire set to make it go off. Edit: Misread the post. It was leveraging the mail system in a way, but not the latest bomb.
If the explosions were happening in more than one location I would say it should absolutely be national news at that point. Right now it's a good 30 second segment on the national news, but it is still a local story.
I mean, the Boston bombings vs these bombs is a matter of logarithmic scale, to be fair
But yeah, some scary stuff going on in Austin the past couple weeks
I too was in Montgomery County and felt terrorized. My point is basically is I've been seeing outrage on twitter about how the events being defined, and it seems like a really asinine thing for people to care more about finger wagging about terminology as they watch from afar, we really have no idea what's going on. We're no closer than we were then when we were looking for white vans all over moco rather than the chevy they eventually found in frederick.
I'm not convinced we really know whos being targeted, personally.
They thought the first one was related to a drug raid down the street, which I think if Austin folk should be upset about anything, is that our PD was pretty casual about a bomb going off in retaliation for a drug raid. Personally, I got calls from people all over after the second bomb, so I'm not sure what level of news cycle people are thinking its not getting, but it's certainly not on the DL. It's also been mentioned casually in SXSW stories that i've been reading over the last few weeks.
The idea that someone leaving bombs around a major american city is not national news is insane.
No, it isn't.
The only thing making this national news would accomplish, is giving the guilty parties actions more fame, letting more people Thoughts&Prayers the victims, and needlessly spreading fear and likely draining law enforcement resources due to false reports in unaffected areas.
Let the perpetrators rot in obscurity, don't celebritize them.
It's depressing how prevalent of a thing this is.
With the revelation of the tripwire bomb AND that all of the bombings are connected, it becomes possibly an indiscriminate serial bomber, and that is an infinitely more dangerous situation.
Again, watching this story closely and keeping my Austin friends in my thoughts :bro:
I'm sympathetic to this, but on the other hand not bringing this kind of violence to the fore obscures it's rising prevelance.
There is no Rising prevalence.