Nashville police were warned in 2019 that Anthony Warner was making a bomb in his RV, but nothing was done to stop him.
Warner’s girlfriend told Nashville police on Aug. 21, 2019 that he was “building bombs in the RV trailer in his hometown,” according to a report Tuesday in The Tennessean.
City agents passed the tip to the FBI and ATF.
But when authorities turned up at Warren’s door, no one answered, and another request to search the property was denied, The Tennessean reported.
Warner’s bomb-making then continued unimpeded until Christmas morning, when he detonated explosives in the vehicle and razed a portion of downtown Nashville.
Data reviewed by the newspaper shows that Raymond Throckmorton, a lawyer for the woman, initially called the police and said Warner’s unnamed friend was concerned about the comments he made – and didn’t want two guns she said that they were from Warner in her house.
Throckmorton told police that Warner “often talks about the military and bomb-making” and “knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb,” the data said.
Police saw the RV in Warren’s driveway, but it was fenced off so they wouldn’t enter.
“They saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter his home or fenced area,” Metropolitan Nashville Police Department spokesman Don Aaron said in a statement to the newspaper.
The Nashville Police Department forwarded the information to the FBI, but “the FBI reported that they had checked their property and found no records at all about Warner,” Aaron said.
On August 28, 2019, the United States Department of Defense also reported that “checks on Warner were all negative,” Aaron told The Tennessean.
“No evidence of a crime has been discovered at any time and no additional action has been taken,” said the spokesman. “No additional information about Warner came to the attention of the department or the FBI after August 2019.”
Warner, 63, hit the radar around 6:30 a.m. on Christmas when he set off a bomb that killed him, injured three others and damaged 41 buildings.
The explosion, outside an AT&T facility, disrupted communications systems throughout parts of the Southeast.