A 23-year-old suspected of planting deadly bombs that struck fear across Austin was described Wednesday by his uncle as a smart and kind "computer geek" and a friend said he was an assertive person who would end up being "kind of dominant and intimidating in conversation."
Austin Police Chief Brian Manley briefs the media, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, Texas. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Neither had any idea what might have motivated Mark Anthony Conditt, who authorities say died after detonating a bomb in his sport utility vehicle as officers moved in for an arrest near Austin. The attacks in the Texas capital and suburban San Antonio killed two people and wounded four others.
"I mean this is coming from nowhere. We just don't know what. I don't know how many ways to say it but everyone is caught off guard by this," Conditt's uncle, Mike Courtney of Lakewood, Colorado, told The Associated Press.
At a news conference Wednesday evening, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said he considers a 25-minute recording on a cellphone found with Conditt a "confession," in which Conditt talks in great detail about the differences among the bombs he built.
But Manley suggested that there might never be a clear motive, noting where the explosives were placed or addressed seems random.
Conditt grew up in Pflugerville, a suburb just northeast of Austin where he was still living just a few miles from his parents' home after moving out. On Wednesday, authorities recovered homemade explosives from inside the residence, which he shared with roommates.
This undated photo from a Facebook posting shows Mark Anthony Conditt. The suspect in the deadly bombings that terrorized Austin blew himself up early Wednesday, March 21, 2018, as authorities closed in on him, bringing a grisly end to a manhunt. (Facebook via AP)
Conditt's family said in a statement they had "no idea of the darkness that Mark must have been in."
Conditt was the oldest of four children who were all home-schooled.
Jeff Reeb, a neighbor of Conditt's parents in Pflugerville for about 17 years, said he watched Conditt grow up and that he always seemed "smart" and "polite." Reeb, 75, said Conditt and his grandson played together into middle school and that Conditt regularly visited his parents, whom Reeb described as good neighbors.
Conditt attended Austin Community College from 2010 to 2012 and was a business administration major, but he did not graduate, according to college spokeswoman Jessica Vess. She said records indicate that no disciplinary actions were made against Conditt.
Although he worked for a time at an area manufacturing company, Gov. Greg Abbott told KXAN-TV in Austin that Conditt apparently was unemployed more recently and had no criminal record.
Conditt left little discernable trace on social media. Aside from a few photos of him on his family's Facebook pages, he addressed a range of topics in an online blog he created in 2012. Vess said he had created the blog as part of a U.S. government class project.
Members of law enforcement stage near the area where a suspect in a series of bombing attacks in Austin blew himself up as authorities closed in, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in Round Rock, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
In the blog titled "Defining my Stance" he gives his opinion on several issues, often in response to commentary by someone else. Conditt wrote that gay marriage should be illegal, argued in favor of the death penalty and gave his thoughts on "why we might want to consider" eliminating sex offender registries.
Of gay marriage, Conditt wrote: "Homosexuality is not natural. Just look at the male and female bodies. They are obviously designed to couple."
In the "about me" section of the blog, Conditt wrote that he wasn't "that politically inclined," saying he viewed himself as conservative but didn't think he had enough information "to defend my stance as well as it should be defended." He said he hoped the class would help him do that.
A friend of Conditt described him as smart, opinionated and often intimidating. Jeremiah Jensen, 24, told the Austin American-Statesman that he was close to Conditt in 2012 and 2013. Jensen said they were both home-schooled and he would often go to the Conditt home for lunch after church on Sundays and they attended Bible study and other activities together.
"I have no idea what caused him to make those bombs," Jensen told the newspaper.
ADDS THE YEAR 2010, WHEN THE PHOTO WAS CREATED - This 2010 student ID photo released by Austin Community College shows Mark Anthony Conditt, who attended classes there between 2010 and 2012, according to the school. (Austin Community College via AP)
He called Conditt a "deep thinker."
"When I met Mark, he was really rough around the edges," Jensen said. "He was a very assertive person and would ... end up being kind of dominant and intimidating in conversation. A lot of people didn't understand him and where he was coming from. He really just wanted to tell the truth. What I remember about him he would push back on you if you said something without thinking about it."
Jensen said "the kind of hate that he succumbed to" was not what Conditt believed in during high school.
"I don't know what happened along the way," Jensen said.
Jensen said Conditt had attended regular church services at Austin Stone Community Church but he didn't know if Conditt "held onto his faith." A spokesman for the church said no records of past engagement or past involvement by Conditt were found.
Congressman Michael McCaul told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the suspect matched the FBI's initial profile suspicion that the bomber was likely a white male. But McCaul said a psychological profile probably won't be known until investigators go through Conditt's writings and social media postings.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden blinked back tears Friday as he accepted blame for manipulating the push-to-pass system in his season-opening IndyCar win that has since been stripped, calling it an embarrassment and acknowledging that he may have a long road ahead in winning back the respect of his peers.
During an emotional 25-minute news conference at Barber Motorsports Park ahead of this weekend's race, the two-time series champion insisted he is “not a liar” and didn't intentionally break the rules. It was his first public comment since IndyCar took away his March 10 victory at St. Petersburg, Florida — the first disqualification by the series in 29 years.
“I want to deeply apologize to our fans, our partners, my teammates, the competitors that I race against,” Newgarden said. “Anybody that’s in our community. I’ve worked my entire career to hold myself to a very high standard and clearly I’ve fallen very short of that in this respect. It’s a difficult thing to wrestle with. It’s a very embarrassing thing to go through.”
Newgarden stripping his win was “absolutely” the right decision by the open-wheel series whose owner, Roger Penske, also runs Newgarden's team and is one of the giants in motorsports. The decision has thrown IndyCar into turmoil as it prepares for next month's showcase Indianapolis 500.
“It’s crushing. I’m going to look back on it, too, and say I don’t want that win on my books, either,” Newgarden said, his voice wavering. “I’m glad they’re taking it away. If it was tainted, I don’t want to be near it. Unfortunately it is. I can’t reverse that in time. It’s good what’s happened.”
Team Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin, who finished third, also was disqualified while fourth-place finisher Will Power was docked 10 points though he wasn't accused of any wrongdoing. The Penske drivers were fined $25,000 because the manipulated systems were on all three cars.
The team has maintained that the push-to-pass system on its three Chevrolets was used in a test session and then mistakenly not replaced before the season began. It remained on the cars for three races, until it was discovered last weekend just before the race at Long Beach, California.
IndyCar President Jay Frye said the series will begin locking a logging unit on cars immediately after qualifying, blocking teams from making any changes in push-to-pass before a race.
“It’s very hard to police intent or to evaluate intent,” Frye said. “So at the end of the day it is about data. It’s on us. We didn’t catch it at St. Pete. We’ve put mechanisms in place we think should prevent it from happening again.”
Mark Miles, CEO of IndyCar and Penske Entertainment, said there was no conflict with Penske as series boss.
“What was really important to us was there was never any question of any interference,” Miles said. “We could be objective and handle the data in the same way we would have handled it for any other team.”
IndyCar prohibits the use of the system on starts and restarts and the button isn’t supposed to work on those occasions. Onboard videos clearly show Newgarden using push-to-pass to gain position on at least one restart at St. Petersburg.
Newgarden said he believed the restart rule implemented with the Thermal race in March extended into the season so push-to-pass could be used “immediately on restarts."
”You guys can call me every name in the book, you can call me incompetent, call me an idiot ... call me stupid, whatever you want to call me, but I’m not a liar," Newgarden said. “The story that I know, which is the truth, is almost too convenient to be believable. So to answer your question, no, I didn’t leave St. Pete thinking we pulled something over on somebody. I didn’t know that we did something wrong until this week.”
The issue was discovered Sunday in California when a glitch knocked push-to-pass out on all cars except the three Penske entries. IndyCar ordered the team to correct the systems before the race.
Penske, Newgarden said, “did not take it well. I was interrogated at first.”
“I've not met somebody with higher integrity than that man, and I mean that,” Newgarden said. Team Penske President Tim Cindric, who has denied any intentional wrongdoing, declined a request for an interview Friday.
Newgarden, featured on the season opener of “100 Days to Indy” airing Friday night, said he didn't know he had broken the rules until Monday, the day after the manipulated systems were discovered at Long Beach. He choked back tears several times when addressing the incident, including when asked what he has to do to regain the trust of his competitors.
“I don’t know how you do that,” Newgarden said. "I don’t know that anybody’s going to believe what I’ve told you here today. And that’s OK. It’s a crazy set of circumstances to try to wrestle with. It’s certainly not going to come with words. I’ll just try and earn it through action.”
Andretti Global driver Colton Herta, who moved up to third at St. Pete with the disqualifications, said he isn't buying that Newgarden didn't realize he was breaking the rules.
"That’s wrong. If he thought that, why didn’t he push it at the start?" Herta said. “He didn’t push it at the start. He pushed it on the restarts. You would think when everybody is stacked up the most, you would push it. So that’s a lie.”
Pato O'Ward, the Arrow McLaren driver who wound up getting the win at St. Pete, said Newgarden could not have acted alone.
“I can guarantee you, it’s not just Josef in this,” O'Ward said. “Obviously what he did was wrong, but I truly feel like him taking the fall for something that he needs a team of people to help with -- he can’t do it alone -- I think it’s a bit unfair to him.”
Gavin Ward, in his first year as team principal for Arrow McLaren, said the team messed up, not just Newgarden. Ward was a race engineer for Team Penske and held that role for Newgarden in the driver's 2019 IndyCar championship run and his runner-up finishes in 2020 and 2021.
Ward said team officials know when a driver presses overtake.
“It’s a flag on everybody’s monitoring,” he said. “Everybody knows when you use the overtake. You telling me none of them realized that was not in the rules? Everybody had the wrong read of it?”
It was the first time the series has disqualified a race winner since Al Unser Jr. at Portland in 1995 over the height of the car's chassis from the ground, a decision that Unser — who was driving for Penske at the time — successfully appealed.
“For this to happen to Team Penske is an eye-opener," Unser told NBC Sports. “In NASCAR, you got to race the rulebook, right? I mean, everybody cheats at NASCAR; it’s just all about getting caught. But in IndyCar, they don’t. This is highly irregular."
AP IndyCar: https://apnews.com/hub/indycar
FILE - Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden, center, celebrates his first place finish along with second place finisher Arrow McLaren driver Pato O'Ward of Mexico, left, and third place finisher Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin of New Zealand in the IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg auto race, Sunday, March 10, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Team Penske suffered a humiliating disqualification Wednesday, April 24, when reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden was stripped of his victory in the season-opening race for manipulating his push-to-pass system. Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin, who finished third in the opener on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, was also disqualified. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)
FILE - Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden, center, celebrates his first place finish along with second place finisher Arrow McLaren driver Pato O'Ward of Mexico, left, and third place finisher Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin of New Zealand in the IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg auto race, Sunday, March 10, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Team Penske suffered a humiliating disqualification Wednesday, April 24, when reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden was stripped of his victory in the season-opening race for manipulating his push-to-pass system. Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin, who finished third in the opener on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, was also disqualified. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)
FILE - Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden, right, celebrates his victory with team owner Roger Penske after the IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg auto race, Sunday, March 10, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Team Penske suffered a humiliating disqualification Wednesday, April 24, when reigning Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden was stripped of his victory in the season-opening race for manipulating his push-to-pass system. Penske teammate Scott McLaughlin, who finished third in the opener on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, was also disqualified. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)
Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden races during a qualifying session for the IndyCar Grand Prix of Long Beach auto race Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Long Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)
Star driver Josef Newgarden fights back tears, accepts blame for breaking rules in IndyCar scandal
Star driver Josef Newgarden fights back tears, accepts blame for breaking rules in IndyCar scandal
