The Tennessee man who officials say detonated a bomb in downtown Nashville in the early hours of Christmas morning, allegedly used to spout anti-police rhetoric to a person he worked with, according to a recent report.
Anthony Quinn Warner died in Friday morning’s explosion near an AT&T building in Music City – which exploded shortly after an audio recording came out of his recreational vehicle urging passersby and those in buildings near to evacuate, and warning them that a bomb would detonate in minutes.
Decades earlier, in the 1970s, Warner reportedly talked about his disdain for law enforcement, reported the Daily Beast.
Tom Lundborg told the website that he was a teenager when Warner allegedly told him, “I hate policemen. They are all corrupt.”
Warner and Lundborg worked together for Lundborg’s father’s security systems company, ACE Alarms, in the late 1970s, according to the report.
The pair spent day after day for at least “a few years” working together and driving from job to job, Lundborg told the agency. Car trips sometimes turned to conversations about the police.
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“Never trust a police officer,” Lundborg reminded Warner, telling him in one of the now old car chats.
According to the report, Warner also told the man who served in the Navy, although it was unclear whether he actually did.
Police were responding to a report of gunshots when they spotted the suspicious trailer, which gave the ominous warning before moving to Petula Clark’s “Downtown”.
The bomb exploded a few minutes later, at approximately 6:30 am, damaging dozens of buildings and injuring three people, killing only Warner
Images from body cameras released by the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department show officers searching the area around Second Avenue North and asking at least one person to go to a safer location while investigating the suspect vehicle.
“Your main goal is to evacuate these buildings now,” a voice can be heard from the RV, according to the nearly 13-minute video recording. “Don’t approach this vehicle.”
“This is so strange,” the officer is heard commenting. “This is like something out of a movie.”
“Like ‘The Purge’,” replies another officer.
Outside the RV’s field of vision, a crash can be heard, followed by alarms of cars ringing and debris falling along the surrounding area.
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Before his death, Warner, 63, changed his life in a way that suggested he never intended to survive the explosion.
He gave his car – and told the recipient that he had cancer – and signed a document that transferred his old home to a California woman in exchange for nothing. A freelance IT consultant, he told an employer that he was retiring.
But he didn’t leave a clear fingerprint or any other obvious clue to explain why he detonated the explosion in his parked recreational vehicle or played a message warning people to flee before he damaged dozens of buildings and stopped cell service in the area. .
Authorities said Warner was not on their radar before Christmas. A police report released on Monday showed that Warner’s only arrest was on marijuana-related charges in 1978.
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David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, told NBC’s “Today” program on Monday that authorities may never get “a complete answer” about why Warner detonated the explosive. He also noted that audio recording leads investigators to believe that Warner was not interested in hurting other people.
“Obviously, the vehicle audio warning people that an explosion was imminent, the opportunity to clean up the area, certainly gives you the perception that the possibility was that he had no intention of hurting anyone but himself, but that obviously influences our investigation, “he said. “It seems that the intention was more destruction than death, but again, all of this is still speculation at this point, as we continue our investigation.”
While investigators were trying to discover a possible reason for the attack, a neighbor remembered a recent conversation with Warner that seemed threatening only in retrospect.
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Rick Laude told the Associated Press on Monday that he saw Warner standing in his mailbox less than a week before Christmas and stopped the car to talk. After asking how Warner’s elderly mother was, Laude said she casually asked him, “Is Santa going to bring anything good for Christmas?”
Warner smiled and said, “Oh yes, Nashville and the world will never forget me,” said Laude.
Laude, who said he had lived near Warner for about 10 years, further recalled the conversation with Fox News on Monday, describing how before making the above statement, Warner said to his neighbor: “I will be famous. “
Laude said he never noticed any suspicious activity from Warner during the decade they met.
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“Anthony Warner, in my opinion, lived a very peaceful life. He had no girlfriend or wife, no children,” Laude told Fox News. “I think, in hindsight, I’m thinking that when he told me what he said, he already knew. Surely, he wasn’t going to say to me, ‘I’m going to blow up Second Avenue at 6:30 in the morning.'”
Henry Klapper, Louis Casiano and the Fox News Associated Press contributed to this report.