AUSTIN, Tx. — Three package bombings that killed two people and injured two others, all of them African-American or Hispanic, in Austin, Texas, may have been motivated by hate, authorities said.
Killed were a 17-year-old boy, an orchestral musician and essay contest winner, and a 39-year-old father, both of them African-American. A 75-year-old Hispanic woman was critically injured and an African-American woman in her 40s was also wounded in the explosions.
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“We are not ruling out hate,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said in a press conference this week of the bombings that occurred in an 11-day span this month. In an interview with ABC News, Manley speculated on possible motivations for the crimes: “Is this driven by an ideology? A philosophy? Is it driven by hate?”
If whoever planted the exploding packages is found to have been motivated by hate, the bombings will be part of a larger trend of an increase in hate crimes in the Texas capital. But experts suspect hate crimes overall are underreported in Texas, and federal and state data obtained by ABC News show very few suspects are ever convicted of hate crimes in the state.