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More than a year before Anthony Warner detonated a bomb on Christmas Day in downtown Nashville, officers visited his home after his girlfriend told police he was building bombs on an RV at their residence, according to papers.
He did not open the door when officers tried to knock, nor did they look inside the motorhome, which they noticed was parked behind his home.
Those revelations, contained in a recently released 2019 incident report, put the Nashville Police Chief on the defensive Thursday (NZT), as he said his officers did nothing wrong and had handled the situation correctly. He added that, aside from a marijuana-related arrest in the 1970s, Warner was “squeaky clean.”
“I think the officers did everything they could legally. Maybe they could have gone on more, in hindsight it’s 20/20, ”Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a news conference.
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Mark Humphrey / AP
Authorities named 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner as the man behind the attack in which he was killed, but the motive remains elusive.
Officers were called to Pamela Perry’s home in Nashville on August 21, 2019, following a report from her attorney that she was making suicide threats while sitting on her porch with guns, the police department said in a release.
According to the incident report, when officers arrived, police said she had two pistols unloaded next to her on the porch. He told them that the guns belonged to “Tony Warner” and that he no longer wanted them in the house. Perry, then 62, underwent a psychological evaluation after speaking with mental health professionals.
“During that visit, before leaving for the evaluation, Perry told police that her boyfriend was making bombs in a motor home,” the report says.
Uncredited / AP
More than a year before a bomb was detonated in downtown Nashville at Christmas, officers visited Anthony Warner’s home after his girlfriend told police he was making bombs.
The report says police went to Warner’s home, about 1.5 miles away, but did not open the door when they knocked repeatedly. They saw the motorhome, but it was in a fenced backyard and officers couldn’t see inside the vehicle. They also saw multiple security cameras and cables attached to an alarm sign on a front door.
“They saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter their fenced home or property,” the police statement said, adding that supervisors and detectives were later notified.
“If we could have had more to do, it would have been nice,” Drake said.
Law enforcement officials did not publicly release the report, which was obtained only after media outlets submitted public records requests. Later, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that Warner’s only arrest was for a marijuana-related charge in 1978.
Mark Humphrey / AP
Nashville Police Chief John Drake, left, joins a group of police officers as they hug after speaking at a press conference in Nashville.
David Rausch, director of TBI, had told reporters earlier this week that Warner was not on his radar. Rausch was flanked by federal and state officials, including Drake, who did not object or amend the statement.
Drake later told reporters Wednesday that he did not learn of the report until Sunday night, but said he believed his officers could not smell any explosives and that there was no probable cause for a search warrant. He also added that he did not know why Rausch said that Warner was not on anyone’s radar.
Wednesday’s events came as federal agents continued to examine Warner’s fingerprint and writings, a law enforcement official said.
Investigators are looking into whether Warner believed in multiple conspiracy theories after some of the people they interviewed told him that Warner believed shape-shifting reptiles take on human form to take over society and that he talked about making trips to hunt aliens. the official said. Investigators have also been asking witnesses if Warner may have believed in some conspiracy about 5G technology.
The official was unable to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Mark Humphrey / AP
Debris remains on the sidewalks in front of buildings damaged in an explosion on Christmas Day.
The report also said attorney Raymond Throckmorton told officers that day that he represented Warner and told officers that Warner “talks frequently about the military and bomb-making,” the police report says. Warner “knows what he’s doing and he’s capable of making a bomb,” Throckmorton told responding officers.
On Tuesday, Throckmorton said The Tennessean that Perry feared for her safety and thought Warner might harm her.
After officers visited Warner’s home last August, the police department’s dangerous devices unit received a copy of the police report. During the week of August 26, 2019, they contacted Throckmorton. Police said officers recalled Throckmorton saying that Warner “didn’t care about the police” and that he would not allow Warner “to allow a visual inspection of the motorhome.”
Throckmorton denies that he told police they couldn’t search the vehicle and says he only represented Warner in a civil case several years earlier.
“Someone, somewhere, dropped the ball,” he said.
Drake said he believed the officers’ account.
A day after officers visited Warner’s home, the police report and identifying information about Warner were sent to the FBI to verify their databases and determine if Warner had prior military connections, police said.
The FBI eventually reported that they had no such records after conducting a standard agency-to-agency record check. No other information about Warner came to the department or to the attention of the FBI after August 2019, police said.
The bombing happened on Christmas morning long before the downtown streets were full of activity. Police were responding to a shooting report Friday when they encountered the RV sounding a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes.
Then, inexplicably, the audio switched to a recording of Petula Clark’s 1964 hit. City center shortly before the explosion. Dozens of buildings were damaged and several people were injured.
Investigators have not discovered a reason.
