Nashville bombing 911 calls provide glimpse at public panic, confusion surrounding explosion
One caller described blast as being 'like a huge fireball'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Recordings of 911 calls during the Nashville bombing show the sheer panic and confusion in the moments before and after the Christmas morning explosion.
Audio recordings, first obtained by affiliate news station FOX 5, provide a glimpse into the terror that surrounded the minutes before the explosion – when a suspicious recreational vehicle began blaring an announcement warning people to evacuate and that a bomb would detonate – and following the blast.
"There’s a sound down there that says there’s a limited time to evacuate this area. There’s a large bomb inside this vehicle. That is playing over and over and over outside," a caller can be heard telling the dispatcher in one of the recordings included in the 56-second video.
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Police discovered the RV parked alongside Second Avenue North in downtown Nashville, near an AT&T building, early Friday morning while investigating a shots-fired report. The RV began playing the audio warning before switching to Petula Clark’s song "Downtown." The bomb detonated at approximately 6:30 a.m.
"There was a big, fiery explosion," another 911 caller can be heard saying. A different caller described the blast as "like a huge fireball."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}There was a big, fiery explosion
Dozens of buildings in downtown Nashville were damaged or destroyed and three people were injured in the explosion. The only person who died was the suspect, Anthony Quinn Warner, police said.
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"My entire building just fell down and is collapsing," a terrified-sounding woman can be heard telling 911. "The roof is collapsing in."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Oh my God, that’s terrifying. Looks like something’s on fire still," another person said during the call.
Officers from the Metro Nashville Police Department had been working to evacuate people from the area surrounding the RV in the minutes before the explosion. Several officers have since been lauded for their work.
But more than a year before the bombing, Warner’s girlfriend told Metro Nashville Police the man was building bombs in an RV at his home. Police visited Warner’s home but did not make contact with him or see inside his RV.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Officers were called to Pamela Perry’s Nashville home on Aug. 21, 2019, following a report from her attorney that she was making suicidal threats while sitting on her front porch with firearms, the police department said in a statement.
According to the incident report, when officers arrived, police said she had two unloaded pistols beside her on the porch. She told them the guns belonged to "Tony Warner" and she did not want them in the house any longer. Perry, then 62, was taken for a psychological evaluation after speaking to mental health professionals.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"During that visit, before leaving for the evaluation, Perry told police that her boyfriend was making bombs in an RV," the report stated.
The report, which was obtained by the Tennessean, says police went to Warner’s home, about 1.5 miles away, but he didn’t answer the door when they knocked repeatedly. They saw the RV but it was in a fenced-off backyard and officers couldn’t see inside the vehicle. They also spotted several security cameras and wires attached to an alarm sign on a front door.
"They saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter his home or fenced property," the police statement said, adding supervisors and detectives were then notified.
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Attorney Raymond Throckmorton told officers at the time that he represented Warner and told officers Warner "frequently talks about the military and bomb making," the police report said. Warner "knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb," Throckmorton told responding officers.
Later, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that Warner’s only arrest was for a 1978 marijuana-related charge.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Police have not yet publicly identified a motive in the attack.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.