Police Give Harrowing Accounts Of Downtown Nashville Bombing | Talking Points Memo

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nashville police urged nearby residents to get away as an ominous recording blared from a recreational vehicle. Suddenly the warning stopped, and Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown” started playing. Then the bomb went off.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1351087

Least surprising headline of the week. How could the details of a bombing like this not be at least “harrowing?”

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I’m in Knoxville and got cell phone service back about two hours ago. But it was nice that I could text with other iPhone users mainly my family.

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It looks like this guy may have been a loner who wanted to commit a spectacular suicide. He did not target individuals like Unabomber, but setting it off outside the AT&T building sounds like he had it in for them. It is a miracle no one was killed, even with the warnings.

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I wonder if Q is really his middle initial?

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I’ll place money on the extreme likelihood that it will be a Trumper behind this. It’s a RWNJ thing.

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Maybe he’s still upset about the 1968 television performance when Harry Belafonte and Petula Clark held hands.

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FBI doesn’t think it was terrorism, so it must have been a Trump-loving, Christian, white guy.

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So what do they think it is? That Thing that is sort of like terrorism but isn’t actually terrorism because it isn’t?

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Good catch but in fact his name is/was Anthony Quinn Warner.

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Well those guys seemingly planning to abduct the Governor of Michigan were really trying to perform a citizens arrest. I guess this guy with a truckload of explosives was just doing some un-regulated demolition.

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The AT&T building was too close to the street.

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Copy Cat??? Going on now
Box Truck Found Playing Similar Audio as RV Christmas Bomb (mediaite.com)

BREAKING: Police Shut Down Highway in Lebanon, TN After Box Truck Found Playing Similar Audio as RV Involved in Nashville Explosion

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What I wonder is if this was a suicide, why didn’t the officers see someone inside the vehicle. Didn’t they look?

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Under Trump’s DOJ there’s no such thing as white supremacists or right wing terrorists. White guy from suburbs blows himself up downtown in truck bomb? Nothing to see here, just an “explosive-rights activist.”

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I think he (the bomber) was the remains found around the RV

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Yes, but they got there before the thing blew and shortly after it started with the announcements. Didn’t they at least have a peak inside to see if anyone was home.

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I know that the reflex is blame right-wing terrorists around here. And I’m sure the wing-nut-o-sphere is full of AntiFa paranoia. And we can (and almost certainly will) argue about what constitutes “terrorism”. But there simply is not enough information, yet, on motivations and the information that is coming out appears to paint a picture of a sad and lonely man with personal issues, family issues, that chose to commit suicide in a dramatic way that may or may not connect to AT&T and his father.

Is it frightening? Yes. Were the people of Nashville terrorized? Yes. Can we connect it to some larger schema of domestic terrorism? We don’t know, yet, but I kind of doubt it.

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Reported all windows had shades pulled down so you could not see in

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This is a pretty fucking awesome story, for something that didn’t end in a conventionally cinematic fashion.

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