HOUSTON – Lawmakers across the country are remaining vigilant after someone mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democrats Wednesday morning, according to police.
“I’m very much concerned about not only the person who have been targeted, but also the people who handle the mail. I’m concerned about the constituents that we serve,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Houston).
When you walk into Green's 9th Congressional District Office, visitors are greeted by a Houston police officer and security cameras.
Green said last year they installed a mail hood, to protect staff from opening mail.
A staff member "can process the mail, you know, that he looks at it to see if there's something suspicious,” Green said as the staff member wore a mask and gloves.
The mail hood has a vent and in the shape of a box. When people inside the office check the mail, they place the parcel inside through the plastic flaps where a spot light and tools are located for them to inspect it.
"When I was a judge, we had security, but we never had this level of security. And to be honest, I don't know if this is quite enough,” said Green.
Many lawmakers admit there is concern after Wednesday’s attempted attacks.
“Investigators are going to take all the variables and try to drill down and if there is a common denominator and is this coming from one particular group or one particular individual or are we starting to see a copycat phenomenon coming into play where people are doing , riding off this wave of hysteria that’s out there right now,” said James Conway, a former FBI agent.
Conway is now the president of Global Intel Strategies, but worked as an FBI agent for roughly 25 years and was in law enforcement for 35 years.
He said investigators will not leave any stone unturned and is confident someone will be caught soon.
“Investigators are working on this jointly and of course the secret service intercepted this, they have a very sophisticated screening system,” said Conway. "The laboratory at the FBI and the Secret Service are pretty sophisticated and they'll drill down and analyze these devices, we don't really know anything yet, but they'll look at possible component parts what they call the signature of the device.”
He said it’s too early for people to make conclusions as the motive, but patterns will be looked into.
"The fact that all of the recipients, all the potential targets of these devices were folks who are on the Democratic side, that's going to be looked at and maybe the source of that,” said Conway.