Early Wednesday, the weeks of terror in Austin, Texas, came to an apparent end when the suspect in a series of bombings blew himself up while being pursued by police. The bombings that suspect — named Mark Anthony Conditt — carried out claimed the lives of two African American men and injured a host of others, including an elderly Hispanic woman and two white males.
A motive for his bombings is still unclear at this point; although the initial seeming targeting of African Americans made the incidents seem like hate crimes, with the indiscriminate injuring of two white males by a bomb triggered by a trip wire, that theory seemingly fell apart.
After being identified by local law enforcement officials, it came to light that at one point in recent years, the 23-year-old Conditt maintained a blog on which he described his political views. The blog was apparently maintained as a part of a high school government class; it’s from 2012 and he graduated in 2013.
The blog, titled “Defining my Stance,” reveals the Austin bomber to have been of a conservative mindset.
The most recent post, which went up on May 11, 2012, is called “Why gay marriage should be illegal,” and is in response to a post seemingly written by his teacher.
In the post, he runs through some of the conventional arguments against accepting non-straight people, although notably, he makes no religious references. (Maybe he was supposed to leave such references out.)
Among other statements, he includes the argument that “political protection for a sexual practice is ludicrous,” although of course, government authorities have a long history of protecting the sexual preference of straight people.
In another post, he argued against providing for “free abortions,” offering up the again familiar argument that:
‘First, if a women [sic] does not want a baby, or is incapable of taking care of one, she should not participate in activities that were made for that reason.’
Overall, it’s pretty clear what his mindset is, although in the bio on the sidebar of the short blog, Conditt described himself as “not that politically inclined.”
The blog, making his views of the same toxic sort as the present White House clear, is just one publicly available detail of what led Conditt to bombing Austin over the last few weeks.
He was eventually tracked down after sending two bombs via FedEx; one exploded in a facility, and another was discovered before it had detonated.
NEW: @USMarshalsGov Lone Star Fugitive Task Force – Austin Division gathered clues from @FedEx video taken Sunday of #TEXASBOMBER dropping off last two packages for delivery. @News4SA @KABBFOX29 pic.twitter.com/XRVdPjDMLc
— Kristina De Leon (@KristinaDeLeon) March 21, 2018
Among the questions remaining to be answered is that of whether or not he acted alone. The Daily Beast notes that Conditt lived with roommates — who are currently being questioned by police — in a house owned by his father.
The president was quick to praise law enforcement officials for tracking him down, writing early Wednesday on Twitter:
‘AUSTIN BOMBING SUSPECT IS DEAD. Great job by law enforcement and all concerned!’
Notably, among the top replies to the president’s tweet is a string of replies from Craig Brittain, whose profile identifies him as a Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, claiming the bomber was “probably just another white Democrat.”
Brittain turned out to seemingly be quite wrong.
Featured Image via Scott Olson/Getty Images
