Photo footage of the police body taken from one of the six police officers in Nashville who evacuated people before Christmas Day captured the moments before and after the downtown explosion.
The 13-minute video taken from Officer Michael Sipos’ camera shows him and other officers walking in the area as they attempt to investigate a suspicious RV blaring a loud warning around 6:30 p.m.
“Your main goal is to evacuate these buildings now,” a voice can hear from the RV. “Do not approach this vehicle.”
The footage shows officers trying to evacuate families before the blast while the RV was warning of a bomb. As Sipos and another officer walk across the vehicle from the vehicle, he comments on the warning.
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“It’s so weird,” he said. “It’s like something out of a movie.”
“Like ‘The Purge,'” the other officer replies.
At one point, the RV started playing a song by the authorities identified by Petula Clark as “Downtown”.
“Between myself and all the other officers, I think, we made contact with six or seven families,” Sipos told reporters Sunday. ‘At that point, officer [Tyler] Luellen who was outside let it be known that the recording had changed. I believe it was then that a song started playing.
The video shows one officer observing the RV parked next to an AT&T building.
“The building where it is located next door is the building that contains all the constipation for telephones in the southeast,” the officer said.
“Makes sense,” replied another. “Great place to put a bomb.”
Sipos then walks to a policeman to put on his protective gear.
“We decided to put on our heavy plates and prepare for anything that would come after the countdown, and at that point I returned to Church Street and rounded the corner to First Avenue where my car was parked,” he said Sunday. . “I actually hit my trunk to get a piece of equipment out, and I felt a pressure and was thrown into the trunk a bit and turned around to see a lot of orange air and a lot of smoke.”
He rushes to the blast zone where debris is littered in the street and officers begin leading people to a safe distance.
“Where’s your car? Get in your car,” said one officer.
It looks like the RV is engulfed in flames, and car horns as well as sirens can be heard in the distance. A series of bangs can be heard, possibly from the RV.
“We hear secondary. It could be ammunition in the vehicle,” one policeman heard on the radio. “Do not get into the open. Do not get out into the open in Second Avenue.”
Once Sipos is back at his vehicle, he tells another group of spectators to get away from the scene.
“Hey, you’ll have to go that way,” he says. “Dude trust me, please go that way.”
Police Chief John Drake attributed the actions of the officers that he saved many lives because only three people were injured.
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“We will not talk about the rubble we have here, but also about potential people,” he said on the day of the attack.
The owner of the vehicle, Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, was killed in the blast, authorities said. Investigators are still trying to determine the motive for the attack. The blast damaged an AT&T building, causing communication disruptions in and around Nashville.