Major explosion in downtown Nashville

[JoeMorgue]

Press conference at 1 (Eastern Time). FBI has taken charge of the investigation.

 

[William Parcher]

Daily Mail has lots of photos including aerial. It's like a giant black spot.

 

[carlosy]

Ahm, something is missing in the story, right?

911: 911, what's your emergency?
Caller: Shots fired
911: We'll send the police
Police arrives: ****, there's a RV in the vicinity. Let's call in the bomb squad and evacuate the area.
Bomb squad arrives: Boom!

 

[William Parcher]

Maybe cops looked in the RV windows and saw what looked like bombs.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It's a downtown street. An RV isn't exactly going to blend in with the ambiance.

 

[William Parcher]

CNN: Buck McCoy said he was originally woken up by what he believed were gunshots about 10 minutes prior to the explosion. He got up and looked out the window, he said, but went back to bed when he didn't see anything. Asked if the noise he heard could have been something other than gunfire, McCoy emphasized that he believed it was, saying he owns a gun and goes shooting, so he's familiar with the sound of gunshots.

 

[William Parcher]

Maybe it's a test run for a bigger bomb; or maybe the bomber thought there would be more destruction and even deaths.

 

[Sherkeu]

Ahm, something is missing in the story, right?

911: 911, what's your emergency?
Caller: Shots fired
911: We'll send the police
Police arrives: ****, there's a RV in the vicinity. Let's call in the bomb squad and evacuate the area.
Bomb squad arrives: Boom!

Yeah, obviously some information missing. You don't go evacuating people on gunshots or suspicious vehicles. You tell them to stay inside. They knew something beforehand.

But...if someone wanted cops to feel the blast, I guess gunshots might get them to come to the area, though none of them seriously injured by it as far as I can tell (seems one cop has lost his hearing though)

 

[Meadmaker]

Ahm, something is missing in the story, right?

911: 911, what's your emergency?
Caller: Shots fired
911: We'll send the police
Police arrives: ****, there's a RV in the vicinity. Let's call in the bomb squad and evacuate the area.
Bomb squad arrives: Boom!

Right. Good point. When I said it might be targeting the police, I was imagining someone firing shots to attract their attention. They didn't need to actually fire the shots, just report them.

 

[William Parcher]

Ahm, something is missing in the story, right?

911: 911, what's your emergency?
Caller: Shots fired
911: We'll send the police
Police arrives: ****, there's a RV in the vicinity. Let's call in the bomb squad and evacuate the area.
Bomb squad arrives: Boom!

I'm confused about what is missing.

I mean, it seems like police saw a bomb and called in the bomb squad.

 

[Mike!]

From the live press conference, when the police found the van they heard a recording saying a bomb would detonate within 15 minutes. From that police began evacuating the area.
A recording with a 15 minute heads up?

 

[Sherkeu]

I'm confused about what is missing.

I mean, it seems like police saw a bomb and called in the bomb squad.

I had not seen the part here they 'inspected the RV and noticed a bomb' inside.
Wonder what it was they saw? Did they go inside it? Do they have bodycams there?

Would be interesting to see (and likely freaky for the cops who went right up to it just minutes before it detonated.)

Also, they saw no evidence of any shooting, though anything about that is likely lost now.

 

[alfaniner]

As so often happens with initial reports, the coverage pissed me off. The substitute airhead anchor kept asking questions of one of the investigators, stuff he couldn't possibly know this early in the process. (only several minutes after it happened.)

What do you think the motivation was?
Is it terrorism or insurance related?
What kind of explosive was used?
Do you have any suspects?

 

[Sherkeu]

From the live press conference, when the police found the van they heard a recording saying a bomb would detonate within 15 minutes. From that police began evacuating the area.
A recording with a 15 minute heads up?

oooh...that is creepy. Was it counting down? or always saying 15 minutes?

 

[eerok]

From the live press conference, when the police found the van they heard a recording saying a bomb would detonate within 15 minutes. From that police began evacuating the area.
A recording with a 15 minute heads up?

Ah, there's the missing context. Very weird stuff, though.

 

[Elagabalus]

I've been binge watching the new season of moonshiners - portable Distillery?


But seriously, why shoot a gun and alert the cops before detonating the explosion?

 

[Elagabalus]

From the live press conference, when the police found the van they heard a recording saying a bomb would detonate within 15 minutes. From that police began evacuating the area.
A recording with a 15 minute heads up?

Dr. Zin?

 

[Checkmite]

For what it's worth, the news articles I'm seeing most lately quote the police as saying they heard "announcements coming from the vehicle" to the effect that a bomb might explode in 15 minutes. This is coupled with a police statement that right now it's unknown whether anyone was in the vehicle at the time it exploded; so while it's reasonable to assume that the "announcement" was a recording, for the time being there is at least a chance that it may not have been.

Either way, that's incredibly bizarre. Obviously someone who intends to kill people - or even lure first responders to a site in order to attack them specifically - isn't going to be broadcasting a warning that a bomb is about to go off. I suspect the bomb was likely intended to damage property to the exclusion of harming people.

 

[Meadmaker]

I've been binge watching the new season of moonshiners - portable Distillery?


But seriously, why shoot a gun and alert the cops before detonating the explosion?

In order to kill the cops.

Except, that "15 minutes" recording wouldn't make much sense for that.


Unless it was something like:

6:15 turn on recording so that passersby will hear it, because you don't want to accidentally kill the "wrong" people.
6:25 Call cops so that they will be in the neighborhood of the bomb, but not close enough to hear recording.
6:30 Boom, with the goal of killing cops who are searching nearby.


Pure speculation.

The recording part is just weird, and trying to make sense of a madman's actions is always difficult.

 

[Sherkeu]

From the Tennessean:

Betsy Williams, the owner of the Melting Pot building across the street, told The Tennessean that guests reported the RV was stationed there since Thursday night.

Williams, who lives in a loft apartment on the third floor, said she heard the sound of loud, rapid-fire gunshots at about 4:30 a.m.

After multiple rounds of gunshot sounds, Williams said she called 911.

Then, she said, she heard a repeated warning she said came from the RV parked outside her building.
...
Just before the blast, witnesses in the area report a dire warning coming from the RV: “Evacuate now. There is a bomb. A bomb is in this vehicle and will explode."

Then, the voice started a 15-minute countdown.

From the reports, the blast went off somewhere between 1.5 to 2 hours after the gunshots heard.