When he arrived, he heard no gunshots. While he was investigating, Officer Brenna Hosey arrived to support him.
“As soon as she got out of the car, almost immediately, the RV started making an announcement,” Luellen, a three-year veteran of the Nashville police force, told reporters on Sunday. “Somewhere along the line, don’t quote me exactly, but, ‘There’s a big bomb inside this vehicle. Your main objective is to evacuate.'”
“I wasn’t sure what I heard, so I looked at Officer Hosey just to see if we heard the same thing,” he said. “And then it started again.”
Not long after, that RV would explode, taking down Luellen and damaging dozens of companies and injure three people – but not before Nashville law enforcement officers go from door to door to get residents close to danger out of danger.
At a press conference on Sunday, five of these six policemen gave first-hand accounts of that morning, what they saw and experienced – from the mysterious messages transmitted by the RV and their efforts to save lives, to the shock of the explosion and fears by their official colleagues .
“This will tie us up forever, for the rest of our lives,” said Officer Wells.
‘We are moving as fast as we can’
After the RV’s message started playing, Luellen said he notified the sergeant. Miller, who said to get everyone out of there. Luellen ordered all available units.
“From the tone of his voice, we knew it was serious,” said Wells, who was with Topping.
“We got there as fast as we could, unaware that the RV was the vehicle in question,” he said. “At the time, we really stopped right in front of him.”
When the police arrived at the scene and waited for the bomb squad to arrive, Sipos and Hosey entered an apartment building and started knocking on the doors. Sgt. Miller also arrived and told the police to move their vehicles to a more strategic position before joining the others to go door to door. Meanwhile, Topping remained on the street to keep pedestrians at bay.
“Between me and all the other policemen who were knocking on the doors, I believe we made contact with six or seven families,” said Sipos.
Soon, the RV’s message changed to a countdown, announcing that the vehicle would detonate.
“This was when we heard the blast announcement 14 minutes earlier,” said Hosey, “so we’re moving as fast as we can.”
After cleaning the first building, the police began to move south, Sipos said. They managed to get into another apartment building, but made no contact with anyone inside.
Luellen informed them that, once again, the message of the RV had changed and now a song was playing. He said an ATF agent later helped him identify him as “Downtown” by Petula Clark.
Soon, it changed again, the police said. The detonation was three minutes away.
‘I literally hear God’
The trailer had all the windows covered, said Luellen, who looked for a sign outside but found none. At one point, Wells said he saw a camera above the RV’s rearview mirror.
“It looked like whoever was behind was watching,” he said. “It was weird for me. All the police jargon you hear about the spider senses, the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. It all went through my body.”
Wells returned to the vehicle to pick up heavy plates for extra protection. He started walking back to the trailer, he said, when, “I literally hear God tell me to turn around and check on Topping.”
Topping was also walking towards the others, but she said that something told her to change direction and walk towards Wells.
Then she said, “I just saw the biggest flames I’ve ever seen, the biggest explosion. I just saw orange and … I felt the heat, the wave.”
“I will never forget the windows breaking after the explosion around me,” she said. “It looked like a big prop for a movie scene, all the windows breaking at once.”
Luellen, who had just told a man who was walking his dog to be safe, said he was knocked to the ground by the explosion. Sipos, who was taking the equipment out of the patrol car, was thrown into the trunk. Hosey was thrown forward, but stopped himself.
Topping ran straight for Wells. They clung and hid in a door for security.
“I was so scared that I lost all my details,” she said.
‘Christmas will never be the same’
Everyone was fine, although Wells suffered some temporary hearing loss in one of his ears, he said. The paramedics wanted to take him to the hospital, but when he heard that three people were injured, he told them to take the injured.
But there was still work to be done.
Luellen, however, checked the man with his dog, before checking on his fellow officers and running towards the wreckage. He found four more people leaving a building that the police were unable to contact initially and told them to leave the area.
“I was just trying to make sure that all of our people were doing well and leaving,” said Hosey. She turned her focus to keep anyone who had not left the blast area or someone who was returning safe.
“We just spent time keeping out residents and pedestrians … keeping them out of the area,” said Sipos.
But after his experience, Wells said he feels lucky to be alive, but also inextricably linked to his colleagues.
“The love for them is even greater now,” Wells said of his official colleagues. “Christmas will never be the same for any of us again.”