Black Families In Austin Are Being Targeted By Package Bombs, Latest Victim was 17-Year-Old Draylen Mason

Draylen Mason is a 17-year-old student from Austin, Texas who was killed because of a bomb page placed on his front door step. Mason is the second victim of package bombing this year, followed by the bombing of Anthony Stephan House. 

Both House and Mason were members of prominent African-American families and knew each other, according to the local NAACP president Nelson Linder. Linder said that a third bomb, which injured 75-year-old Esperanza Herrera, may have been intended for “another person who might be connected to the House and Mason families.”

House was killed on March 3^rd of this year, and Mason was killed on March 12^th, 2018.  Mason was a musician who was set to enroll at the University of Texas Butler School of Music.  Mason was an aspiring doctor and orchestra bassist who was clearly “going places,” said neighbor Jesse Washington, who was awoken by the blast. According to CNN, the package was found outside of Mason’s house, and someone brought it in and tried to open it. Mason’s mother suffered non-life threatening injuries.

House, 39, was a father and founder of his own money-management firm. He attended Texas State University-San Marcos, and once helped design the Austin NAACP organization’s website. Both House and Mason’s families knew each other.

House’s neighbor even tried to help him, and attempted to revive him.

Mason was the “most remarkable talent in a most remarkable youth orchestra program called Austin Sound Waves,” said Doug Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts at UT Austin, KXAN reported. “From everything I’ve heard about Draylen, he was an outstanding young man who was going places with his life, and it’s an absolute tragedy that he’s no longer with us,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley told reporters.

Black and brown people in Austin have been feeling outsourced from the city for years, and that Austin has strong racial tension. “We do feel targeted. Until it happens to somebody that is not a person of color I think that is going to remain the same,” Chas Moore, executive director of AJC, said earlier Thursday. “Austin is a liberal city but it’s liberal to a max,” Moore said. “We still have black and brown people who have been pushed out of the east side.”