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More than a year before the explosion that rocked Nashville last week, Anthony Warner's girlfriend told police that he "was building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence," according to a police report filed in August 2019.
Yet the report indicates Nashville police never made contact with Warner. Despite having the report in their database, police did not share it with the public until Tuesday evening — four days after Warner drove his RV to downtown Nashville and detonated a bomb out of the vehicle, killing himself and injuring at least seven people.
On Sunday, the head of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told reporters that Warner was not on the radar before the bombing, and on the evening of the blast, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said no prior threat had been made against the city.
However, the 2019 police report, first obtained by The Tennessean and NewsChannel 5, shows that officers responded in 2019 to a call at the home of Warner's girlfriend, who told them that he was building bombs. The woman's attorney, Raymond Throckmorton, was also present and told police that Warner "frequently talks about the military and bomb making," according to the report. "[Throckmorton] stated he believes that the suspect knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb."
On Aug. 21, 2019, the girlfriend told Nashville police that Warner "was building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence," the MNPD report states. Nashville police then forwarded the information to the FBI.
Officers were called to the home of Warner's girlfriend, roughly a mile and a half from Warner, who lived at 115 Bakertown Road.
Police were called by the woman's attorney, Raymond Throckmorton III, who was concerned about comments she had made. When they arrived, they found her sitting on the porch with two unloaded guns nearby.
"She related that the guns belonged to a 'Tony Warner' and that she did not want them in the house any longer," MNPD spokesman Don Aaron said in a statement to The Tennessean.
While at the house, the woman told police about the bomb comments Warner had made.
Throckmorton, who served as the woman's attorney, told officers Warner "frequently talks about the military and bomb making," the document said.
Warner "knows what he is doing and is capable of making a bomb," the attorney said to the officers, according to the report.
Police then went to Warner's home, but he didn't answer the door after they knocked several times.
Officers saw his RV behind the house, but the vehicle was fenced off and police were unable to see inside of it, the report said. While there, police noted that there were "several security cameras and wires attached to a alarm sign on the front door."
The officers notified supervisors and detectives about the incident.
"They saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter his home or fenced property," Aaron said of officers' unsuccessful attempt to make contact with Warner or look inside the RV.
Girlfriend warned Nashville police Anthony Warner was building bomb a year ago, report shows
Nashville police got a report 16 months before a bomb exploded in the city on Christmas that a man named in the blast was building a device in his RV.
www.tennessean.com
