Nashville: officers raid a home as a person of interest reportedly linked to Christmas Day blast

Law enforcement officers raided an address near Nashville and a person of interest has reportedly been identified in the investigation of an apparent bomb blast that rocked the downtown of Tennessee’s biggest city on Christmas morning.

Three people were lightly injured in the blast and some possible human remains have been found near the site of an RV that exploded and caused serious damage to Nashville’s historic core.

It is not clear if or how the remains are linked to the incident, however investigators are examining the possibility the blast was the result of a suicide bombing, CNN reported, citing two anonymous law enforcement sources.

Investigators from multiple federal and local law enforcement agencies are investigating the attack on Friday, Christmas day.

It came when police were responding to an early morning report of shots fired when they encountered the RV blaring a recorded warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes, Metro Nashville police chief John Drake said. Police evacuated nearby buildings and called in the bomb squad. The RV exploded shortly afterward.

Police believe the blast was intentional but don’t yet know a motive or target, and Drake noted that officials had not received any threats before the explosion.

On Saturday afternoon investigators with the FBI, Nashville police and others arrived at a two-storey, red-brick house in the Nashville suburb of Antioch just after mid-day. “Information developed during the course of the investigation led us to this address,” said Darrell DeBusk, an FBI public affairs officer.

DeBusk said he was unaware of anyone in custody at that time. Previously, law enforcement officials have said they are not engaged in an active manhunt and that there is no ongoing threat to the city.

Drake said investigators at the scene “have found tissue that we believe could be remains, but we’ll have that examined and let you know at that time.”

CBS reported that several sources had confirmed that Nashville area resident Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, had a similar make and model vehicle to the suspect RV and was linked to the address being raided.

The blast sent black smoke and flames billowing from the heart of downtown Nashville’s tourist scene, an area packed with honky-tonks, restaurants and shops. Buildings shook and windows shattered streets away from the explosion near a building owned by AT&T that lies one block from the company’s office tower, a landmark in downtown.

On Saturday morning teams of experts were still collecting debris from a wide area of the blast site. The damage to the AT&T building has prompted some speculation that it was the target of the attack.

“We do not know if that was a coincidence, or if that was the intention,” police spokesman Don Aaron said. He said earlier that some people were taken to the department’s central precinct for questioning but declined to give details.

AT&T said the affected building is the central office of a telephone exchange, with network equipment in it. The blast interrupted service, but the company declined to say how widespread outages were.

Sweeping communications outages continued to plague large swathes of Tennessee on Saturday. Police emergency systems in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, as well as Nashville’s Covid-19 community hotline and a handful of hospital systems, remained out of service due to an AT&T central office being affected by the blast. The building contained a telephone exchange, with network equipment in it but the company has declined to say exactly how many people have been impacted.

AT&T said that it was bringing in portable cell sites and was working with law enforcement to get access to make repairs to its equipment. The company noted that “power is essential to restoring” service.

The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily halted flights out of Nashville airport because of telecommunications issues associated with the explosion.

The FBI will be taking the lead in the investigation, agency spokesman Joel Siskovic said. Federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also on the scene. The FBI is the primary law enforcement agency responsible for investigating federal crimes, such as explosives violations and acts of terrorism.