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NASHVILLE — Sixteen months before Anthony Quinn Warner’s RV exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, officers visited his Tennessee home after his girlfriend reported he was making bombs in the vehicle, according to documents obtained by The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.
It doesn’t appear, however, that actions were taken to stop Warner, who, on Friday, blew up a city block, killing himself, injuring three others, causing massive destruction to 41 downtown buildings and crippling telecommunication systems throughout the Southeast over the weekend.
In the aftermath of the explosion, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Warner was “not on our radar” prior to the bombing. But a Metro Nashville Police Department report from August 2019 shows that local and federal authorities were aware of alleged threats he had made.
On Aug. 21, 2019, Warner’s girlfriend told Nashville police that Warner “was building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence,” the MNPD report states. Nashville police forwarded the information to the FBI.
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Officers were called to the home of Warner’s girlfriend by the woman’s attorney, Raymond Throckmorton III. 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 said he represented both Warner and the woman, told officers Warner “frequently talks about the military and bomb making,” according to the document.
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.
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“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.
The department’s hazardous devices unit was given a copy of the report.
The next day, Nashville police sent the report and identifying information about Warner to the FBI to check their databases, Aaron said in a statement to The Tennessean.
Later that day, Aaron said, “the FBI reported back that they checked their holdings and found no records on Warner at all.”
Darrell DeBusk, a spokesperson for the FBI, told The Tennessean on Tuesday night the inquiry was a standard agency-to-agency record check.
The Department of Defense reported back on Aug. 28, 2019, that “checks on Warner were all negative,” Aaron said.
During the week of Aug. 26, 2019, police called Throckmorton, who declined to allow police to interview Warner or go on Warner’s property, the FBI told The Tennessean.
In a statement Tuesday night from Aaron, he said officers recalled Throckmorton saying Warner “did not care for the police,” and that Throckmorton would not allow Warner to give consent to officers to conduct a visual inspection of the RV.
Throckmorton did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday night.
“At no time was there any evidence of a crime detected and no additional action was taken,” Aaron said. “No additional information about Warner came to the department’s or the FBI’s attention after August 2019.”
Aaron reported that the ATF also had no information on Warner.
Warner’s only prior arrest was in January 1978, for marijuana possession.
Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.
