NASHVILLE – Federal agents raided a Nashville home on Saturday and began sifting through at least 500 bypasses after an explosion shook downtown on Christmas Day, injuring three people, damaging dozens of historic buildings and plunging much of the city into a panic. as communications went down.
The vehicle detonated around 6:30 a.m. Christmas morning, in what police have called an “intentional act.” Officers responded to a call that shots were fired in the area, where they found an RV playing a recording warning that a bomb would detonate “in 15 minutes.” The six local agents who rushed to evacuate the sleeping residents were hailed as “heroes” for saving the lives of civilians.
CBS News reporter Jeff Pegues reported Saturday that police had identified a person of interest“A 63-year-old man named Anthony Quinn Warner.” MSNBC confirmed that Warner’s house was being sought in connection with the bombing. Authorities declined to confirm those details at a briefing on Saturday, even after the CBS News report, but said they were not looking for “any other topic.”
As questions revolved around the circumstances of the bombing, Warner residents on Bakertown Road were shaken by the sudden police activity and surprised by the idea that he might have been involved in the blast.
“They’re one of the best families anyone could want to meet,” said Bernice Gilley, who said she had known the Warner family since she and her husband moved to the street 56 years ago.
Like most people on this stretch of Bakertown, Gilley and her husband were shocked when local and federal agents showed up Saturday morning. Gilley worried that Warner’s mother had fallen or been injured. She told her husband she was going to check on the old woman, but officers stopped him and told her that Anthony Warner was a person interested in the bombing.
The Gilleys were surprised by this news. “I’m still really worried about her,” Gilley said. “She’s a very good friend.”
A decades-old resident who knew the Warner family didn’t even know Anthony existed before police officers arrived and started asking questions.
His current neighbors agreed that Anthony Warner was very quiet. “He’s a very private person,” one told The Daily Beast. “As you can see, his whole house is closed.”
Neighbors had noticed that the RV had disappeared shortly before Christmas. Some of the street kids saw the pictures of the RV online and asked their parents if it could be the same as Warner had, but really no one believed it.
According to public records, the house was moved from Warner to a woman by a writ of resignation just four weeks ago. The woman, Michelle Swing, told The Daily Mail that she paid nothing for the house.
“In the state of Tennessee you can write property to another person without their consent or their signature or anything,” Swing said. “I didn’t even buy the house, but he gave it to me without my knowledge. So this is very strange to me, that’s all I can say. “
Swing did not clarify what his connection to Warner was, if any. Neighbors interviewed by The Daily Beast said they knew nothing about the house having a new owner.
But a second home on Bakertown Road also moved from Warner to Swing in resignation writing last year. Records indicate Warner as single.
Davidson County records showed that Warner was found guilty of an unspecified felony charge in 1980 after an arrest in January 1978.
The Daily Beast’s attempts to reach Warner and those listed in the property records were unsuccessful.
More than 24 hours after the blast exploded around the city, residents were still struggling to get answers.
The three people injured in the blast were all according to reports they were discharged from the hospital on Friday and authorities repeatedly highlighted a point during their information session on Saturday: the city will continue to operate, even when it remains on curfew and faces power outages. .
In addition to emergency services and mobile phone services that fell in many parts of the city after the explosion, Internet and television reception also fell throughout the area and some businesses were left without power. process credit card transactions. At least 41 businesses were damaged, according to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who said it was “a miracle no residents died.”
An AT&T headquarters was also affected by the blast, with a fire that re-ignited overnight and led to the evacuation of the building, CBS News reported.
Nashville Metro Police Chief John Drake stressed Saturday that “Nashville is safe” and FBI Special Agent Doug Korneski said there was “no evidence” of secondary threats. .
But the question of reasons remained, as did the question of whether anyone was inside the RV at the time of the blast: Drake said Friday night that “tissue we believe could be debris” was found at the site. . However, authorities have not yet been able to confirm much more than that.
This weekend’s events were particularly distressing for people living near Warner on Bakertown Road. Most of the other brick duplexes on its street are full of refugees and immigrants who had come to the United States fleeing violence in Iraq, Africa, and Latin America. For them, the explosion brings them back to a reality they desperately tried to leave behind forever.
“It’s too much,” said one woman who asked to speak anonymously. “I just can’t get over it.”
“There are people in the world who walk outside and think they’re going to step on a bomb,” her friend agreed. “It’s really scary when you think you’ve moved away from it and been free, and that’s what happens. I guess you never know what might happen in your neighborhood. ”
While neighbors want a solution to the bombing, they hoped Warner wasn’t really involved. They brainstormed innocent explanations as they watched federal agents conduct their raid: maybe he drove his RV into the mountains for a vacation or maybe he sold his RV and went on vacation.
“We haven’t seen anything suspicious,” one of them said.