More than a year before a Christmas man set off a bomb that exploded in Nashville, Tennessee, his girlfriend warned police he was building bombs in a recreational vehicle parked at his home, according to police reports.
A lawyer for the bomber’s girlfriend, Anthony Warner, told officers on August 21, 2019 that Warner “regularly talks about the military and making bombs,” according to an incident report released by the Metro Nashville Police Department.
According to the report, officers requested that Warner visit his home, where they knocked on the front door. Officials wrote that they “noticed several security cameras and wires attached to an alarm at the front door”, the report said.
Officers said they saw an RV parked behind a fence in the backyard, but said they could not see into the vehicle. Authorities have identified an RV linked to Warner as the source of the blast on Christmas Day.
Police said Wednesday the officers saw no evidence of a crime and did not have the power to enter the property or the fenced backyard. They also determined that the friend needed a psychological evaluation and that she was taken to a hospital, according to police.
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The day after officers visited Warner’s home, an incident report was sent by police to the FBI, saying they were requesting the agency and the Department of Defense to conduct a record search on Warner. Police said a search in both databases found no results.
The Metro Nashville Police Department did not say they were asking the FBI to investigate Warner, but said the Dangerous Devices Unit followed up the incident report with the attorney. According to police, the attorney told the department that Warner “does not care about police” and that he would not allow a visual inspection of the RV.
David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, told reporters this week that Warner was not on the agency’s radar before the bombing – except for one arrest for possession of marijuana in 1978.
A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman told NBC News on Wednesday they were previously unaware of the incident with the Metro Nashville police station and Warner’s girlfriend.
The spokesman said in a statement: “To be clear, the remarks our director made about him ‘not on our radar’ were not specific to our agency and not to all law enforcers.”
Unlike other cases, such as with Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, the FBI said they were only asked to investigate a database on Warner and that they were not asked to investigate to set.
The Metro Nashville Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Warner, 63, who has been described as a ‘loner’ by people who knew him, recently retired as an information technology consultant, NBC News reported on Monday.
Officers responded to reports of gunfire in the area on Christmas morning, but instead heard a warning of an explosion from an RV parked outside an AT&T building. Authorities said the blast, which was reportedly launched by Warner, went off last Friday at 6:30 a.m. and rippled across several blocks in downtown Nashville.
The blast injured at least three people and damaged more than 40 businesses in the area. Warner was the only person killed in the blast.
