mollyfamwatAt about 5:30, Nashville P.D. responded to the shooting. CT on Friday when they found the RV parked in front of the AT&T transmission building at 166 2nd Avenue North.
There was a recorded message from the van saying a bomb would go off in 15 minutes, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a press conference.
The vice mayor of Nashville, Jim Shulman, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the warning message sounded from the car before the explosion was delivered by a woman.
There were people who were evacuated, and then we heard people say it didn’t work when the message said it would work, and people started coming back, and then it worked, he explained.
Officers saw no direct signs of gunfire, but they contacted the dangerous devices department of the department and began evacuating residents, police said.
The van exploded at 6:30 this morning. CT when the demining team responded, police spokesman Don Aaron said.
We think it was premeditated, he said. Substantial damage was caused to the infrastructure on the north side of 2nd Avenue.
Current developments
– Three people were taken to the hospital, but none of them were in critical condition, said Nashville firefighter Joseph Pleasant.
– The police chirps a photo of the RV and reports that it arrived on the 2nd Avenue at 1:22 am.
– The FBI office in Memphis is leading the investigation and Special Agent Matt Foster has asked the public for advice and information.
– A witness said that three cars were among the many properties burned after the explosion.
Authorities: There are no credible threats indicating an imminent attack before Christmas.
The force of the explosion knocked down one officer, Aaron said, and caused another to lose his hearing – hopefully temporarily, he said. But none of the officers were hurt.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
Authorities don’t know if anyone was in the van when it exploded, Aaron said.
There have been no known credible threats in the Nashville area that would have reported an imminent attack on Nashville or before Christmas, a federal law enforcement source told CNN.
A second law enforcement source stated that federal authorities are unaware of any increase in national chatter from known extremist groups that would indicate credible plans to carry out holiday attacks.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Rosen was informed of the incident, according to his spokesman, and ordered that all resources of the Ministry of Justice be made available to assist the investigation.
The White House said that President Donald Trump has also been notified and will receive regular updates.
In a statement on Twitter, Bill Lee said the state will provide all necessary resources to determine the cause of the explosion.
Outside everything was on fire.
Nashville Police shared a picture of the van on Twitter, saying it arrived on the street at 1:22 a.m. CT. The police have asked the public to share any information on this case with the authorities.
Eyewitness Buck McCoy told CNN that the explosion took place just outside his house, causing his windows to explode.
He said everything was on fire outside. There were three cars that were fully absorbed.
McCoy said he was woken up by what he thought were gunshots before the explosion. He got up and looked out the window, he said, but went back to bed when he saw nothing.
When asked whether the sound he heard could be anything other than a gunshot, Mr McCoy remarked that he thought it was because he had a gun and wanted to shoot, so he was familiar with the sound of the shots.
McCoy told CNN that when he looked outside after the explosion, trees had fallen and there was broken glass everywhere. He saw people leaving the apartment with their pets. The firemen told him to stay as far away as possible, he says.
There’s nothing left on 2nd Avenue, he says.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
Lives saved through evacuation
Before the explosion, officers went door-to-door or flat-to-house to inform residents of the situation, Aaron said. A man walking his dog on 2nd Avenue was hijacked by an officer just before the van exploded.
We believe the officers who did this saved lives, Aaron said Friday afternoon.
Technical experts from the FBI laboratory and evidence collection teams have been brought in from across the country to help deal with this mass crime, Foster said.
Special Agent responsible for ATF, Mickey French, said his agency had activated its national response teams and worked with the FBI and MVPD. The agency has explosives experts, chemists and engineers involved in evidence retrieval.
Nashville Fire Department officials are on site to assess the structural integrity of the buildings and ensure there are no additional casualties, said William Chief Swan.
Fault! The file name is not specified.
Nashville Mayor John Cooper told CNN that dozens of buildings have been damaged, mostly by shards of glass. Some buildings have been evacuated, the mayor said, but he doesn’t know how many buildings or how many people have been affected.
Right now, 2nd Avenue is full of broken glass, he said.
The street is located on the outskirts of the tourist and friendly district of Tennessee in the historic old part of town.
Cooper told WSMV, which is connected to CNN, that the explosion clearly took place when no one was around.
Luckily there aren’t many people here, he said.
AT&T spokesman, Jim Greer, told CNN that the company’s network hub had been damaged by the explosion and that service to the Nashville area could be affected.
CNN’s parent company, WarnerMedia, is owned by AT&T.
Paul P. Murphy, Karma Hassan, Evan Perez, Josh Campbell, Brian Stelter and Devon Sayers of CNN contributed to this report.
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