Nashville blast: search for motive after terrorist identified as Anthony Warner

After federal officials have identified the man believed to be behind the Nashville bombing on Christmas Day, authorities are now engaged in the monumental task of reconstructing the motive for the explosion that severely damaged dozens of buildings in the city. center and injured three people.

On Sunday, authorities named 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner as the man behind the mysterious explosion in which he was killed, yet the motive remains elusive.

“We’re hoping to get an answer. Sometimes it just isn’t possible,” David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said in an interview on NBC’s Today show. “The best way to find a reason is to talk to the individual. We won’t be able to do that in this case.”

In just a few days, hundreds of tips and leads have been sent to law enforcement agencies. However, so far, officials have not provided information on what possibly led Warner to trigger the explosion. According to officials, he hadn’t been on the radar before Christmas. A TBI logs report released Monday showed that Warner’s only arrest was for a marijuana-related charge in 1978.

“It appears that the intention was more destruction than death, but, again, all of that remains speculation at this time as we continue our investigation with all of our partners,” Rausch added.

Additionally, officials have not provided information on why Warner selected the particular location for the bombing, which damaged an AT&T building and continued to wreak havoc on cell phone service and police and hospital communications in several southern states while the company he was working to restore service.

Forensic analysts were reviewing evidence collected from the blast site to try to identify the components of the explosives, as well as information from the U.S. Bomb Data Center for intelligence and investigative leads, according to a law enforcement official. That said investigators were examining Warner’s fingerprint and financial history, as well as a recent transfer of deed to a suburban Nashville home that they recorded.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said federal agents were examining a number of potential leads and pursuing various theories, including the possibility that the AT&T building was attacked.

Officials were now looking at each and every motive and were interviewing Warner acquaintances to try to determine what might have motivated him.

The bombing took place on a festive morning long before the downtown streets were full of activity and was accompanied by a recorded announcement warning everyone nearby that a bomb would soon detonate. Then, for reasons that may never be known, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark’s 1964 hit in Downtown shortly before the explosion.

Warner, who according to public records had experience with electronics and alarms and who had also worked as a computer consultant for a Nashville real estate agent, had been considered a person of interest in the bombing since at least Saturday, when investigators federal and local converged on the household linked to him.

Federal agents could be seen looking around the property, searching the home and backyard. A Google Maps image captured in May 2019 showed an RV similar to the one that exploded parked in the backyard but was not on the property Saturday, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

On Sunday morning, the police formally named Warner as an under investigation.
Officials said their Warner ID was based on several key pieces of evidence, including DNA found at the blast site. Investigators had previously revealed that human remains had been found in the immediate vicinity.

Additionally, Tennessee Highway Patrol investigators recovered parts of the RV from the wreckage of the blast and were able to link the vehicle identification number to an RV that was registered to Warner’s name, authorities said.

Police were responding to a shooting report on Friday when they came across the RV sounding a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes. Suddenly, the warning stopped and Downtown began to sound.

The RV exploded shortly after, sending black smoke and flames from the heart of downtown Nashville’s tourist scene, an area filled with restaurants, shops and restaurants.

Buildings shook and windows ripped through streets away from the blast near an AT&T-owned building that sits a block from the company’s office tower, a downtown landmark.

But by Sunday, a few blocks from where the bombing took place, tourists had already begun filling the sidewalks in Lower Broadway, a central entertainment district. Some took selfies while others tried to get as close as possible to the scene of the explosion, blocked by police barricades.

Early Sunday, responding officers provided heartbreaking details, sometimes choking on reliving the moments that led to the explosion.

“This will unite us forever, for the rest of my life,” Metro Nashville Police Officer James Wells, who suffered a hearing loss from the blast, told reporters at a news conference. “Christmas will never be the same again.”

Officer Brenna Hosey said she and her colleagues knocked on six or seven doors on nearby apartments to warn people to evacuate. In particular, he recalled a surprised mother of four children.

“I don’t have children, but I have cousins ​​and nieces, little people that I love,” Hosey said, adding that she had to plead with the family to leave the building as quickly as possible.

– AP