Austin police reported on Wednesday morning that the suspect behind the spate of bombings in the city this month killed himself in his car with an explosive device as he was being pursued by police in Round Rock, a town 20 miles north of Austin.
President Donald Trump also responded on Twitter:
“It’s been a long almost three weeks,” Austin police chief Brian Manley said. Police have asked people to stay vigilant as authorities aren’t clear on where the suspect has been in the past 24 hours, and can’t be sure that no other packages were sent.
Manley said the suspect was a 24-year-old white man, but couldn’t release his name at this time. He said that the authorities couldn’t be sure the man was acting alone, or what his motivation was.
The series of bombings has shaken residents of the Texan capital since Mar. 2. Two people were killed and at least five others injured in separate explosions. The most recent explosion happened on Mar. 20, when a package thought to be headed to Austin exploded in a FedEx facility in Schertz, 65 miles south of the state capital.
In Austin, a city with a fraught history of racial segregation, some have wondered whether with the attacks—the victims in the first three incidents were black and Latino–were racially motivated. The two black victims both belonged to prominent African-American families.