Nashville: officers raid a home as a person of
interest reportedly linked to Christmas Day blast
Three people lightly injured and possible human
remains found
Unclear if or how remains are linked to downtown
explosion
Miranda
Bryant
Sat 26 Dec
2020 13.21 GMTFirst published on Sat 26 Dec 2020 13.20 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/26/nashville-blast-christmas-bomb-explosion
Law
enforcement officers raided an address near Nashville and 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.
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.
DeBush 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
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.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário