More than a year before a man detonated a bomb in Nashville, Tennessee, his girlfriend warned police he was making a bomb in a recreational vehicle parked at his home, according to police reports.
Anthony Warner, a friend of the suspect in the August 21, 2019 bombing, told authorities that Werner “talks frequently about the military and bomb-making,” according to a report released by the Metro Nashville Police Department.
According to the report, officials from the attorney’s office asked to visit Warner’s home, where they could knock on the front door. Officials wrote that they saw “several security cameras and wires connected to alarms” at the front door, the report said.
Officials said they saw an RV parked behind a fence in the back porch, but said they could not see inside the vehicle. Officials identified an RV attached to Warner as the source of the Christmas Day explosion.
Police said Wednesday that officers saw no evidence of the crime and had no right to enter the property or the backyard on the fence. They also determined that the girlfriend needed a “mental assessment” and that she was taken to a hospital, police said.
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The day after officers went to Werner’s home, an incident report was sent by the police to the FBI, saying they had requested the agency and the Department of Defense to conduct a record search on Warner. A search from both databases yielded no results, police said.
The Metro Nashville Police Department did not say they requested the FBI to begin an investigation into Warner, but said their hazardous devices unit followed the incident report with the attorney. According to police, the attorney told the department that Werner “did not take care of the police” and would not allow visual inspection of the RV.
David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, told reporters this week that the bomber was not on Warner Agency’s radar before the bombing – except for an arrest in 1978 for possession of marijuana.
A spokesman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told NBC News Wednesday that they were previously unaware of the incident involving the Metro Nashville Police Department and Warner’s girlfriend.
“To clarify, the comments made by our director about him ‘not being on our radar’ were specific to our agency and not in all matters of law enforcement,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Unlike other cases such as Boston Marathon bomber Zokhor Zarnav or Orlando Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Matten, the FBI said he was only told to run a database search on Warner and was not asked to open an investigation.
The Metro Nashville Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
NBC News reported on Monday that Warner, who was described as “lonely” by those who knew him, had recently retired as an information technology consultant.
Officers were responding to reports of gunfire in the area on Christmas morning when they instead heard a warning of an explosion from an RV parked outside the AT&T building. Officials said the blast, which authorities believe was orchestrated by Warner, went off at 6:30 a.m. Friday, sparking a stampede in several blocks in downtown Nashville.
The blast injured at least three people and damaged more than 40 nearby businesses. Warner was the only person killed in the blast.
