NEW YORK - FedEx Corp. said on Wednesday “key evidence” it provided to law enforcement officials led to the identification of the Texas bombing suspect, according to an internal FedEx memo seen by Reuters.
The suspect was identified as Mark Anthony Conditt, of Pflugerville, Texas, according to the local CBS television affiliate and Austin American-Statesman newspaper, citing unnamed law enforcement sources. Reuters could not immediately confirm the suspect’s identity.
“FedEx was able to provide law enforcement with key evidence leading to the identification of the suspect responsible for the bombing because of our advanced security capabilities and the vigilance of our team members,” FedEx Chief Operations Officer David Bronczek said in the memo.
FedEx was screening every package at the Texas facility where a parcel exploded on Tuesday, and will also X-ray entire trailers of packages at its sorting facility outside Austin, as well as those originating from or sent to the Austin area, a FedEx manager said.
The FedEx employee was not authorized to speak on the record. The source does not work at the sorting facility but was briefed on the situation.
Packages will likely be delayed by a day or two at the facility, and FedEx was re-routing thousands of other packages to its hub in Houston each day through the end of the week to avoid further delays, the employee said.
FedEx spokesman Jim McCluskey declined comment.
The blast at FedEx on Tuesday was one of six in Texas over the past 18 days. The attacks have killed two people, injured others and left hundreds of federal and local investigators scrambling to find the perpetrator and a motive.
FedEx and other package delivery companies collect a vast amount of data on packages entering their systems, such as the location where the package was picked up by the driver and the time.
But package screening is not routine at the nation’s big package couriers such as FedEx, United Parcel Service Inc. or the U.S. Postal Service.
The industry delivers around 40 million parcels in the United States each day and checking a large portion of that volume on a regular basis would paralyze operations, said Satish Jindel, a founder of the delivery company that became FedEx Ground and now president of ShipMatrix, which tracks on-time shipments.
“It would shut the economy down,” Jindel said.
LATEST WORLD STORIES
Click to enlarge
