What kind of person, or persons, could be responsible for the three deadly package bombings in Austin?
That’s the question KVUE asked former ATF agent and specialized bomb expert Doug -- whose name we won’t use for protection.
According to Doug, who worked as an ATF agent in Texas for 24 years, the suspect(s) responsible wouldn't necessarily have to be someone who was highly trained in making bombs.
"I keep hearing that and I don't mean to insult anybody, but without knowing you don't really know,” explained Doug.
Doug said with accessible online information, it wouldn’t take special training to put something like a bomb together. He wants to emphasize that he is not a part of the active investigation right now and doesn’t know what kind of bomb the evidence points to.
"At the beginning of my time with ATF, most people had to get a hold of the anarchist cookbook or things like that to construct a device, now all you have to do is hit the keys in the keyboard and Google it and you can get whatever you want,” explains Doug.
Doug refers to Eric Rudolph, also known as the Olympic Park Bomber as an example. Rudolph killed two people and injured 120 more.
Doug said investigators expected Rudolph to be trained in explosives based on the bombs he used.
"The thought was this was a very well trained person and it turned out he wasn't that well trained. There's a lot of information out there that a person can gather."
Doug said he has faith in the Austin Police Department to conduct a thorough investigation along the ATF and the FBI.
"We trained with them just for things like this,” explained Doug.