Nashville Police Investigators Ignored Warnings as Bomber Plotted
Police failed to follow up on warnings about Anthony Q. Warner, the perpetrator behind the Christmas Day explosion in downtown Nashville.
Landwebs
Despite assurances from law enforcement officials that Nashville police had repeatedly attempted to follow up on a 2019 tip that Anthony Q. Warner, the perpetrator behind the Christmas Day explosion in downtown Nashville, had been building bombs in a vehicle parked outside his house, a report released on Wednesday found no documentation of any attempts to reach Warner after officers knocked on his door and got no response, reports the New York Times. The report added that the police should have acted more aggressively by trying to establish the probable cause needed to search his home. Instead, the case sat open for months as Warner plotted the attack.
An investigatory panel including senior officials from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and others from outside the agency concluded that there was “no way to know for sure if the suicide bombing on December 25, 2020, could have been prevented.” Police officials said on Wednesday that the department was adopting a list of recommendations made by the panel. The department will require far more detailed documentation of how officers follow up on an investigation, noting attempts to call, the number of times officers knock on a suspect’s door or when the suspect is the subject of database checks. There will also be regular audits of hazardous device case files and meetings with federal and state law enforcement agencies to discuss investigations. The department will also add a more stringent process for classifying a case as inactive.
