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Law enforcement officials released the identify of the suspected Austin bomber Wednesday who killed himself after carrying out a series of attacks throughout the city.
The suspect, 24-year-old Mark Anthony Conditt, a resident of Pflugerville, Texas, self detonated an explosive after being confronted by SWAT officers off of Interstate 35.
One officer is said to have fired at the vehicle at the time of the blast while another was injured in the explosion.
Police initially located Conditt at a Round Rock area hotel after using what was described as “cell phone technology” – a potential reference to an IMSI-catcher device.
Conditt, who was not previously known to law enforcement, first came up on the radar of police after surveillance camera footage was recovered from a FedEx store in which an unexploded bomb was discovered.
Images from the surveillance footage shows Conditt wearing gloves and what appears to be a wig.
The video led police to obtain purchase receipts and a warrant for Conditt’s Google search history, both of which were deemed suspicious.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revealed Wednesday that Conditt lived with several roommates, all of whom are being questioned by investigators. Abbott also said a “treasure trove” of information was found at Conditt’s residence.
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said during a Wednesday morning press conference that investigators are still looking for a motive.
“We do not understand what motivated him to do what he did” but “we believe this individual is responsible for all incidents dating back to March 2,” Manley said during an early morning press conference.
Manley also warned that other explosives could be present and that investigators are attempting to rule out the possibility of any accomplices.
Conditt was alleged to have been responsible for five explosions since March 2, resulting in two deaths and other injuries. An unexploded bomb was also found Tuesday at a FedEx distribution center in Austin.
Lawmakers in the Capital of Texas voted Thursday to restrict the city from doing business with companies who bid on President Trump’s wall project.
The City of Austin passed a policy 10-1 blacklisting certain companies, in a resolution which calls the wall a “damaging symbol of fear and division.”
President Trump’s plan to “build a physical wall along the entire international border between the United States and Mexico, (is) in direct conflict with the core values” of the United States, the resolution says, citing text from the Statue of Liberty.
“It is the policy of the city council, to the best of its ability, not to procure services from any company involved in the design, construction, or maintenance of the border wall,” the resolution states.
Council Member Delia Garza, the resolution’s main sponsor, has said she believed the wall was merely political campaign rhetoric and “would not make Texas or any other state safer, or reduce crime.”
The rhetoric “coupled with the president’s description of Mexicans as criminals and rapists, is extremely offensive to me as I am Mexican-American,” Garza said.
Doing business with a company that bid on the wall would send the wrong message to the immigrant community and Mexico, claimed Garza.
“I thought it was important to send a message to our community that we support them and we are welcoming, and we can choose not to do business with a company that I would think is not a good community partner,” Garza said.
“In Austin we build bridges, not walls,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler said.
An agenda item on Thursday’s action notes said the council would “develop a policy to apply the City’s stated opposition to such a wall through use of the City’s contracting policies and procedures.”
City Council Putting Lives, Safety of Residents at Risk
Stephen Neusch, president of Black Security Products, LLC, the only Austin company to submit a wall bid, told Infowars the policy is merely a symbolic representation of the city’s opposition to Trump.
Black Security Products, LLC, President Stephen Neusch speaks to Infowars’ Jake Lloyd.
“It’s political. It’s them trying to go against Trump and the right’s agenda, which I think they’re stepping out of bounds,” Neusch told Infowars.
“It’s ridiculous honestly, they’re playing games,” Neusch said, adding most of his contracts come from the federal government, not the city.
“They’re saying, ‘You can’t work for us if you work for the federal government, because we don’t like the federal government.’ That makes no sense.”
Neusch said council members were putting Austin residents’ safety at risk by passing such a resolution.
“What we do as security companies, we keep people from getting run over by cars. We stop that from happening. We put up vehicle barriers that prevent people from doing that. And they’re saying they don’t want to work with the only company in Austin that does that, therefore hurting the security of the people of Austin because they have a beef with Trump and the wall… makes no sense,” Neusch said.
“They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face.”
Attorney Tyler Nixon says the federal government would have the option to limit federal funds to Austin if the city prohibits companies from taking up federal contracts.
“If you are taking any federal money, you forfeit it if you spend ANY locally-collected taxpayer monies on any program or service that uses a federal contractor exclusion of any kind in determining the winning bid or contractor,” Nixon wrote in a letter to Infowars.
The owner of another Texas company that bid on the wall, PennaGroup from Fort Worth, said last May he’d received death threats for submitting a proposal.
“We’ve been getting a lot of death threats,” PennaGroup owner Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga told KTRK. “I’m Latino and this is a Latino-owned company and we weren’t sure whether or not we wanted to enter into this project because there was a lot of political controversy around it.”
Texas Sterling Construction Co. of Houston was among four businesses from across the country that won a contract to build a wall prototype last September.
DHS Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke opposed the resolution at an annual Border Security Expo in San Antonio Wednesday, saying “blackballing” companies is something “we shouldn’t be tolerating.”
“This is a democracy and a free country,” Duke said.
If approved, Austin would join dozens of other cities adopting similar bans, including Flagstaff, Tucson and San Diego.
Update: Article amended to reflect City of Austin passed resolution 10-1.
A United Airlines pilot was removed from a San Francisco bound flight Saturday evening after using the plane’s intercom system to go on an erratic rant about her divorce and the recent presidential election.
The pilot, who showed up late to the plane set to depart from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, boarded the plane in normal street clothes instead of her United pilot uniform and told the passengers on the intercom from the front of the plane, “Sorry I’m late. The reason I’m late is I’m going through a divorce.”
She continued rambling, making passengers increasingly uncomfortable and pointing out an interracial couple sitting in first class, according to Buzzfeed. Passenger Randy Reiss said, “It quickly went from playful to scary.”
Witnesses said the pilot then commented on the 2016 presidential election, telling passengers, “Look, I don’t care if you voted for Trump or Clinton, they’re both a**holes.” She also said she was going to let her co-pilot fly the plane because he was a man, and offered passengers the opportunity to disembark the plane.
“So I’ll stop, and we’ll fly the plane. Don’t worry. I’m going to let my co-pilot fly it. He’s a man,” she laughed. “Okay, if you don’t feel safe, then get off the airplane. But otherwise we can go.” Part of the outburst was caught on video by one of the passengers.
Reiss, who can be seen in a blue shirt in the video above, left the plane after the outburst, and stated on his Twitter account that nearly half the passengers followed his lead. He also posted a picture of the pilot afterward, standing in the airport next to police.
United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart confirmed that the pilot was removed and the crew was replaced before the plane continued on to San Francisco.
“We hold our employees to the highest standards and we removed that pilot from that flight,” he said. “We brought in a new crew and they operated that flight.”
The flight departed Austin, Texas, approximately two hours late and passengers were given snacks and a meal voucher to compensate for the delay.
“We removed her from the flight, (and) we’re going to discuss this matter with her,” Hobart said, according to the Austin-American Statesman. “We were looking out for our customers to get them to where they needed to be.”
Editor’s note: The original version of this post included an embedded YouTube video of the incident in question. The embed of that video has been removed pending the resolution of a copyright dispute at YouTube. You may view the video at YouTube until then by clicking here.
