The Nashville bomber emailed material with his views to acquaintances before the explosion, the FBI said

The material could provide further information on the motive of the bomber, identified as 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner. DeBusk asked those who received the material to contact the FBI.

Warner, from Antioch, Tennessee, died when his RV exploded on 2nd Avenue North, injuring at least eight people and damaging more than 40 buildings, including an AT&T transmission building. In the moments before the explosion, his RV broadcast ominous warnings in a computerized female voice that it would soon explode. The unusual warnings prompted police and bystanders to leave the area and restrict human money.

The warnings and sparse evidence of Warner’s politics have deterred authorities from calling the bombing an act of terrorism, which by definition is an act to advance a political goal.

Police were told he was building bombs

Although his motive is unclear, Warner’s ability to bomb has previously been reported to police.

A woman who said she was Warner’s girlfriend told police last year he was making bombs in his RV, according to a statement and documents the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department provided to CNN.

On August 21, 2019, police received a call from a lawyer representing Pamela Perry, the woman who said she was Warner’s girlfriend, the MNPD said last Tuesday. Her lawyer, Raymond Throckmorton, said she made ‘suicide threats by phone’ to him.

When police arrived at Perry’s home, they found two unloaded pistols near Perry, which said they belonged to Warner. She told officers she no longer wanted them in the house and that Warner was “building bombs in the RV trailer in his home,” according to a report by the MNPD.

Police also spoke to Throckmorton, who once represented Warner and was also at Perry’s home. He told authorities Warner “regularly talks about the military and making bombs. (Throckmorton) said he believes the suspect knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb,” the report said.

An officer observed Warner’s home for several days, but according to Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake, he found no evidence of bombing. It would have taken a sign of a crime being committed, or that a bomb had been made, to obtain a legal warrant or subpoena, Drake said.

“I believe officers legally did everything they could. Maybe we could follow up more – afterwards is 20/20,” Drake said. “The officers probably did not have reason to get a warrant. There was a call for service to a lady who had two guns, who needed care, and we, you know, she needed help. “There was nothing else to say. OK, yes – you must have a probable cause.”

An officer asked Throckmorton by telephone if he could look inside the RV behind the house. The lawyer told the officer that Warren “does not care about the police” and “I will not be able to do that, according to Drake.”

Throckmorton denied the claims in an interview with CNN subsidiary WTVF.

“He was not a current client of mine at the time,” Throckmorton said. “I certainly would never have told him not to go watch it if I were the one who said: go there, find out what’s going on.”