Explosion in Downtown Nashville an intentional act

figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Police believe RV explosion on Second Avenue North 'an intentional act'

"MNPD Public Information Officer Don Aaron said police responded to a shots fired call on Second Avenue North early Friday morning. When officers arrived on the scene, there was no evidence to indicate a shooting, but they found a 'suspicious RV parked on the street.'

"Police called the Hazardous Devices unit to the scene to investigate when the blast went off in the RV at 6:30 a.m..

"It is unclear if anyone was inside the RV at the time of the explosion. "

Three people were taken to the hospital, but none had significant injuries.



" Metro Police, FBI and ATF are currently investigating the scene. "

A large vehicle exploding as police approach it? Sounds like someone was planning a bigger act of terrorism and detonated early.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Is that the RV announcing that? Or is it a police broadcast? The article I read said the bomb squad was already en route and that residents were told to evacuate.
Oh hey, the article actually says the RV was broadcasting that message along with a 15min timer. That's seriously messed up.

--Patrick
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

I'd suspect it's the latter.

Damn. Any other time of the year and that street is packed with tourists. 2nd Avenue North is like the Tourist Trap Mecca of downtown Nashville.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Frank said:
Have the said why they're so certain it's an international act?
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If witness accounts are true, the RV that was or was near the source of the explosion was playing a warning to evacuate the area. There aren't many circumstances I can think of where an RV has a warning system like this for accidents.

Dave said:
Intentional, not international.
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Wow, I didn't even realize Frank said international.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
blotsfan said:
Christmas feels like the worst day to do a terrorist attack (die hard joke here) since you dont have people densely packed together.
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I think the question to ask is: When is the next time there is expected to be a sort of crowd in the area? And if police hadn't been called because of alleged gunfire, how long could an RV go unnoticed in that area? The timing of this explosion may not have happened as planned.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

AT&T had a switching station across from the site of the bomb.

I don’t know if phone service or cell service is back and available in downtown Nashville yet.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

jwhouk said:
AT&T had a switching station across from the site of the bomb.

I don’t know if phone service or cell service is back and available in downtown Nashville yet.
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With the care taken not to harm people, this sounds like a strike against AT&T.

There were the White Supremacists arrested this week that because they threatened to blow up utilities, because their boy Trump lost the election. But it is hard to find any articles about those arrests now.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
With the care taken not to harm people, this sounds like a strike against AT&T.
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It certainly sounds like it was a strike against property and not people, but the AT&T building doesn't feel to me like the actual intended target. We should get more info once the provenance of the RV is determined. I am really hoping this does not turn out to be related to the December 22nd firing of Nashville's fire marshal, because if all this turns out to be a blaze-of-glory arson/suicide on the part of a disgruntled former city employee, that would be severely SMH sad.

EDIT: While I believe the AT&T building may have been intentionally targeted, I don't believe AT&T the company was targeted. I feel like it was more of a landmark/cityscape/geography thing rather than any attempt to strike at the company itself.

--Patrick
 
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Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

Jim Wright

5tSpoonsoorehiud ·

The explosion took out a single commercial communications hub.
And THAT crippled the city. It took down the airport. Took down emergency services and police communications. Took down data and the internet, which crippled news, information services, social media, and thus both government and the public's awareness and ability to respond.
And yet, the terrorists took pains to reduce the number of human casualties. Why?
Unless this is a Bruce Willis Christmas movie involving international criminals covering up the theft of billions in bearer bonds, then the odds are very high this was a probing attack -- a test by our enemies foreign OR domestic.
This used to be my job. Cut a critical comms node, see what effect it has on the target, how long it takes to restore, how the adversary responds. Of course, that was war.
This is either something similar, or the terrorists got incredibly lucky.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
They are looking at a house in Antioch, TN - a Nashville suburb - and have a "person of interest". I'm not reading much further than that until we have more information. I don't want another Richard Jewel.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
They are saying it's a suicide bombing. The person who did it was in the camper when it blew. They are scouring his (or her) house for stuff. Wonder which platform (Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Parler) has his manifesto.
 
ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

Honestly guys the more news that comes out about this, the more I think this was just an elaborate suicide.

The way people speak about him, he was an odd rather paranoid recluse, friendly but lonely, as his neighbors said he never had guests over. It seems he wanted to end his life, but he also desperately wanted people to remember him, but didn't want to kill anyone for that infamy. When looking through that lens it makes sense. He rigged the RV to explode, drove to a main street in Tennessee, called the police with a fake claim of shots being fired as to get them to the RV, play the tape so they would start evacuating and keep people from getting close, then boom, end it all. If he simply killed himself with a shotgun in the mouth, only his neighbors might remember him. If he hung himself in the middle of Tennessee, maybe only the city would remember him. Blow up a street on Christmas day though? That's nationwide news.

He got what he wanted.
 
General Specific

General Specific

ScytheRexx said:
Honestly guys the more news that comes out about this, the more I think this was just an elaborate suicide.

The way people speak about him, he was an odd rather paranoid recluse, friendly but lonely, as his neighbors said he never had guests over. It seems he wanted to end his life, but he also desperately wanted people to remember him, but didn't want to kill anyone for that infamy. When looking through that lens it makes sense. He rigged the RV to explode, drove to a main street in Tennessee, called the police with a fake claim of shots being fired as to get them to the RV, play the tape so they would start evacuating and keep people from getting close, then boom, end it all. If he simply killed himself with a shotgun in the mouth, only his neighbors might remember him. If he hung himself in the middle of Tennessee, maybe only the city would remember him. Blow up a street on Christmas day though? That's nationwide news.

He got what he wanted.
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This honestly makes the most sense out of every theory I've heard. If it was a terrorist act, why go through the trouble of warning everyone?
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Well, we know he didn't call the police with a fake claim of gunshots, because several witnesses reported hearing them. I thought maybe he shot himself, rather than fear losing his nerve at the last minute and disabling the bomb...but after reading some witness reports, maybe he faked the gunshots in order to get the police out.

www.nbcnews.com

Nashville police investigating Christmas morning vehicle explosion

The 6:30 a.m. explosion sent three people to hospitals with non-critical injuries. Police say an RV exploded after broadcasting a warning.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
"I do want to say in retrospect, we've talked about it, we feel like those gunshots were a recording as well. Not actual gunshots," Madlom said. "I mean, we feel like it was a recording because there was the sound the pattern to it. By the third time we heard it was exactly the same."
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ScytheRexx

ScytheRexx

Tinwhistler said:
maybe he faked the gunshots in order to get the police out
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If it's true there were multiple calls about the shots then this is most likely it. It makes more sense then there just being random shootings happening in the area. It also seemed like the recordings started as soon as the police arrived, so unless he setup some sort of sensor system he had to be alive to start it.
 
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