Two people were injured in another explosion in Texas’ capital Sunday night, and police are not ruling out a connection to the three previous explosions that detonated earlier this month elsewhere in the city.
The latest blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. in a suburban neighborhood known as Travis Country in southwest Austin – far from the previous three that were all in residential areas in the eastern part of the city – and investigators didn’t immediately confirm what caused it. But police Chief Brian Manley repeated previously issued warnings for residents not to touch any unexpected packages left at their homes.
“What we have right now is a scene where it is obvious that an explosion has taken place,” Manley said at a hastily organized news conference near the site of the latest blast.
Manley, responding to reports that the latest explosion may have been detonated by a trip wire, said it was a possibility that the device was “activated by someone either handling, kicking or coming into contact with a trip wire that activated the device.”
He urged people within half a mile to stay in their homes and said authorities would keep the surrounding area blocked off at least until daybreak Monday “given the darkness and size of the area that we want to go in and check.”
“We want to put out the message that we’ve been putting out and that is, not only do not touch any packages or anything that looks like a package, do not even go near it at this time,” Manley said. Because “we have not had an opportunity to look at this blast site to really determine what has happened.”