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US federal investigators identified a person of interest in connection with the explosion that shook downtown Nashville on Christmas Day and were searching a home associated with that person.
Investigators from multiple federal and local law enforcement agencies were at a home in Antioch, suburban Nashville, after receiving information relevant to the investigation, FBI Special Agent Jason Packon said on Saturday (local time).
Another law enforcement officer, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said investigators view a person associated with the property as a person of interest in the bombing.
Andrew Nelles / AP
More than $ 300,000 has been raised as a reward for information leading to the arrest of the party or parties behind the explosion.
Earlier on Saturday (Sunday NZT), investigators said at a press conference that they are observing several people who may be related to the bombing, but have also not found additional explosive devices, indicating that there is no active threat to the area.
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Douglas Korneski, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Memphis field office, said 250 FBI agents, analysts and personnel working on the case are moving forward in the search for the person or persons responsible for planting a bomb in a RV that exploded along a mostly deserted street. Three people were injured.
“It’s going to take us some time,” he said. “Our research team is turning every stone” to understand who did this and why.
METRO NASHVILLE PD
This image taken from surveillance video provided by Metro Nashville PD shows an RV that was involved in an explosion in Nashville.
Separately, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a report Saturday that tissue samples found at the scene were determined to be human remains.
The attack has continued to wreak havoc on communications systems across the state. Police emergency systems in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, as well as Nashville’s Covid-19 Community Hotline and a handful of hospital systems, remained out of service because an AT&T headquarters was affected by the blast. .
The building had a telephone exchange with network equipment, but the company declined to say exactly how many people have been affected.
Investigators closed off the heart of downtown Nashville’s tourist scene, an area teeming with honky-tonks, restaurants and shops, as they walked through broken glass and damaged buildings to learn more about the explosion.
Mark Humphrey / AP
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake (center) says police responded to a report of shooting when they came upon the motorhome with a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes.
Mayor John Cooper imposed a downtown curfew through Sunday through an executive order limiting public access to the area.
AT&T said restoration efforts face several challenges, including a fire that “rekindled overnight and led to the evacuation of the building.” This has forced his teams to work with safety and structural engineers and to drill access holes to the building to reconnect power.
“Our teams continue to work around the clock on recovery efforts from yesterday morning’s explosion in Nashville,” the company said in a statement Saturday. “We have two portable mobile sites operating in downtown Nashville with numerous additional portable sites being rolled out in the Nashville area and region.”
Governor Bill Lee asked the White House on Saturday for federal assistance due to the “severity and magnitude” of the blast’s impact. At least 41 buildings were damaged and communications systems, including home and cell phone service and 911 call centers, failed across the state, he said. Kentucky and northern Alabama were also affected, he said.
Andrew Nelles / AP
Investigators have not yet determined the motive for the bomb.
Ray Neville, T-Mobile’s president of technology, said on Twitter that the service disruptions affected Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham and Atlanta. “We continue to see service disruptions in these areas after yesterday’s explosion. Restoration efforts continue 24 hours a day and we will keep you updated on progress, ”he said in a tweet Saturday.
The outages had even briefly grounded flights at Nashville International Airport, but service continued normally as of Saturday. Since then, the Federal Aviation Association has issued a temporary flight restriction around the airport, requiring pilots to follow strict procedures until December 30.
According to Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake, police officers responded to a report of gunfire on Friday when they encountered the motorcade with a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Police evacuated nearby buildings and called the bomb squad. The RV exploded shortly after.
Mark Humphrey / AP
The explosion that shook the largely deserted streets of downtown Nashville early Christmas morning smashed windows, damaged buildings and injured three people.
Law enforcement officials have said since shortly after the blast occurred around 6.30am that they believe the blast was intentional. They have not spoken publicly about a possible target or motive.
In West Virginia, a hospital system said Saturday it was experiencing network connection problems directly related to the Nashville blast. South Charleston-based Thomas Health, which operates two hospitals, said on its Facebook page that it did not have an estimated time of restoration.
Similarly, Sumner Regional Medical Center in Gallatin, Tennessee, said on its Facebook page that it was operating without access to some of its systems, including medical records.
“We prepare for situations like this and immediately go to paper records. There have been no interruptions in the provision of patient care and there is no cause for concern about this temporary problem, ”the center said in a post Friday.
