Nashville officers give firsthand account of Christmas Day explosion

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Nashville police urged nearby residents to get away as an ominous recording blared from a recreational vehicle. Suddenly the warning stopped, and Petula Clark’s 1964 hit "Downtown" started playing. Then the bomb went off.

Police officers provided harrowing details Sunday of responding to the Christmas morning explosion in downtown Nashville, at times getting choked up reliving the moments that led up to the blast and offering gratitude that they were still alive.

"This is going to tie us together forever, for the rest of my life," Officer James Wells, who suffered some hearing loss due to the explosion, told reporters at a news conference. "Christmas will never be the same."

A 63-year-old Tennessee man, Anthony Q. Warner, was under investigation in connection with the blast, Nashville Metro Police spokesman Don Aaron said. He did not provide more details. Warner had experience with electronics and alarms, according to public records, and had worked as a computer consultant for a Nashville realtor.

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The five responding officers gave their accounts of what happened Friday as investigators continued to chip away at the motive of the RV bombing on a mostly deserted street just after it issued the recorded warning advising people to evacuate.

"I just see orange and then I hear a loud boom. As I’m stumbling around, I just tell myself to stay on my feet and to stay alive," Wells said, at times tearing up.

Officer Amanda Topping said she initially parked their police car beside the RV while responding to the call before moving it once they heard the recording. Topping said she called her wife to let her know that "things were just really strange" as she helped guide people away from the RV.

That’s when she heard the RV recording switch from a warning to playing Clark’s hit, "Downtown." Moments later the explosion struck.

"I felt the waves of heat but I kind of just lost it and started sprinting toward (Wells)," Topping said. "I’ve never grabbed someone so hard in my life."

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Officer Brenna Hosey said she and her colleagues knocked on six or seven doors in nearby apartments to warn people to evacuate. She particularly remembered a startled mother of four children.

"I don’t have kids but I have cousins and nieces, people who I love who are small," Hosey said, adding she had to plead with the family to leave the building as quickly as possible.

The attack, which damaged an AT&T building, has continued to wreak havoc on cellphone service and police and hospital communications in several Southern states as the company worked to restore service.

On Saturday, investigators from multiple federal and local law enforcement agencies descended on a home in Antioch, in suburban Nashville, after receiving information relevant to the investigation, said FBI Special Agent Jason Pack.

Another law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said authorities were investigating someone associated with the property, whom he identified as Warner.

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

The official said federal investigators were examining Warner’s digital footprint and financial history, as well as a recent deed transfer of the home they searched in suburban Nashville.

Forensic analysts were also 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, the official said.

He said federal agents were examining a number of potential leads and pursuing several theories, including the possibility that the AT&T building was targeted. The bomb caused damage that affected communications in several states.

Investigators shut down the heart of downtown Nashville’s tourist scene — an area packed with honky-tonks, restaurants and shops — as they shuffled through broken glass and damaged buildings to learn more about the explosion.

Meanwhile, Nashville realtor Steve Fridrich told the AP in a text message that Warner had worked for his company as a computer consultant, and informed it that he was retiring earlier this month. The company has notified authorities of the past IT work, Fridrich said.

There were other signs of progress in the investigation. The FBI has said it was looking at a number of individuals who may be connected to it. Officials also said no additional explosive devices have been found — indicating no active threat to the area.

Investigators also said they were working to identify human remains found at the scene. Beyond that, the only known casualties were three injured people.

The infrastructure damage was broadly felt, due to an AT&T central office being affected by the blast. Police emergency systems in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, as well as Nashville’s COVID-19 community hot line and a handful of hospital systems were impacted.

The building contained a telephone exchange, with network equipment in it — but the company has declined to say exactly how many people were affected.

AT&T said Sunday it was rerouting service to other facilities as the company worked to restore its heavily damaged building. The company said in a statement that it was bringing in resources to help recover affected voice and data services and expects to have 24 additional trailers of disaster recovery equipment at the site by the end of the day.

Restoration efforts faced several challenges, which included a fire that forced their teams to work with safety and structural engineers and drilling access holes into the building in order to reconnect power.

The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a temporary flight restriction around the airport, requiring pilots to follow strict procedures until Dec. 30.

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Balsamo and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Scott Stroud and photographer Mark Humphrey in Nashville contributed to this report.