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Downtown Nashville Sealed Off after Intentional Explosion. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 25, 2020 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:00:00]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: Hello and thank you for joining us. You're watching a special edition of Newsroom. I'm Bianna Golodryga.

And we begin with breaking news out of Nashville, where police are investigating an explosion early this morning as an intentional act. The mayor warning residents to stay away from the downtown area. A briefing is set to begin any moment. We'll bring that to you live.

Police believe the explosion came from a parked vehicle outside the AT&T building. Now that is the tallest building in the state. That happened around 6:30 this morning local time. Three people were injured and taken to the hospital. We are told, thankfully, that they are not in critical condition. A nearby businesses shared surveillance footage which captured the moment of the blast.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee then tweeted, we will supply all of the resources needed to determine what happened and who was responsible.

CNN's Evan Perez joins me with more on this. Evan, we know that the FBI is now involved in this investigation. What more can you tell us?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bianna, the FBI field office in Memphis has taken over the lead of this investigation. I'm told that that's an indication, not necessarily that they've decided what this is. The FBI has a lot of resources available that perhaps the local authorities don't have. And so that's one of the reasons why they took over the investigation.

It's still very early. There's very, very little known. We saw from an earlier briefing the police gave on the scene there that they said that there had been some reports of gunshots before the emergency responders arrived on scene and it appears that those responders were there when the explosion happened. It appears it was an R.V. that was the source of this explosion.

What exactly caused it is still very much a mystery. But you can see from the pictures that we are getting from the scene there that the destruction was -- that this was an explosion that caused a lot of destruction for buildings nearby. Clearly, there was a lot of force from this explosion. Again, exactly what caused that explosion from the R.V. is still not yet known. But you can see that it goes on for a couple of blocks, even windows on a street adjacent were blown out as a result of the force of this explosion. It happened just before 6:00 A.M.

Again, because it happened at a time of day when there were not a lot of people around, there was no -- appears to be nobody injured seriously. A couple of police officers who were on scene were knocked down. I think they said one police officer may have suffered some hearing loss. But apart from that, thankfully, on a Christmas morning here, there was nobody around and therefore people count their blessings that this could have been a lot worse if it had happened at a different time.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Yes, thankfully, indeed. And for those just joining us, looking at these live aerial images, this is Downtown Nashville, Tennessee. It could be mistaken for a war zone. It just gives you the sense of the magnitude of this explosion and the fact that only three people nearby were injured and not critically tells you what a Christmas miracle this tragedy turned out to be because it is just devastating to look at the buildings completely wrecked, windows, as you said, blown out blocks away.

Evan, we know there's new reporting that there was no known credible threat in Nashville area that would have signaled an impending attack on or before Christmas. A federal law enforcement source has been telling CNN this. Why is this significant?

PEREZ (voice-over): Well, this is significant because one of the first things that the investigators would look for is they try to see whether there have been threats made, whether there is anything from the FBI is always gathering possible indications of a threat in any specific area.

And so that's one of the first things that investigators would check to see did we have any kind of indication that something could be happening in Nashville, or where there any threats perhaps for Christmas morning.

Obviously, it is one of those times where law enforcement is always on alert for the possibility that someone might try to carry out a terrorist attack, for instance, again, nothing like that was anticipated or even at this stage, the fact that they've gone back to double check and they still have no indication of that. I think that's a good indication at least that they didn't miss something.

Now, the question is what exactly caused this. Obviously, explosions like this just don't happen just like that. So, one of the first things you have to immediately put on your list of suspicions is whether it is a domestic terrorism incident, right?

That is something that the FBI normally would -- that's one of the first things that they're checking. And, again, we have no indication of that, but it is one of the things that obviously the FBI and the other investigators who are on the scene are going to be looking for. Now, the police earlier today said that they're going to deploy officers to try to gather pieces of this to see with a vehicle that was blown up, whether that would indicate what kind of explosive caused this. Again, that's going to be a big clue as to whether or not it was a terrorist incident or whether this is some kind of accident. Those are the things that they're looking for right now.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): And we know that the police were called around 6:00 A.M. this morning and shortly thereafter the explosion took place. This is early into the investigation, Evan. I know you will continue to follow this as well as the forensics team starts to analyze what they find there as evidence at the scene. Evan, thank you so much. We'll be checking back with you later.

A morning explosion in Nashville interrupting Christmas for that city. Authorities believe the explosion, as we said, was an intentional act and received multiple reports of a suspicious vehicle minutes before smoke planked 2nd Avenue. We're going live to the briefing in Nashville right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- responded to a call for shots fired in the downtown area. Specifically, Second and near Commerce. Also responded, they encountered an R.V. that had a recording saying that a potential bomb would detonate within 15 minutes.

Officers, upon hearing that, decided to evacuate the buildings nearby, so they began knocking on doors, making announcements, having emergency communications, communicate with everyone to get people safe. Shortly after that, the R.V. exploded. We had one officer that was knocked to the ground. Another officer is fine.

Currently, what we have going on now, we have canine dogs, all of them out, partnered with two or three highway patrol and federal partners, sweeping the downtown area just as precaution to make sure that everyone is safe and that any service that needed, we can provide that.

And so with that said, we don't feel there's any concern in the downtown area of anything else right now, but we are doing that as a precaution just to search with the bomb dogs.

At this time, I will turn it over to Attorney Don Cocharan.

DON COCHARAN, U.S. ATTORNEY: Good afternoon and Merry Christmas. Unfortunately, this is not the way any of us wanted to spend our Christmas morning, I know. But I'm Don Cocharan. I'm the U.S. attorney here in Nashville, Tennessee.

This morning, I briefed the acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, on the situation here in Nashville. He has told me to tell the police chief in Nashville that we are devoting the entire resources of Department of Justice to help in their investigation. FBI and ATF are taking the lead into this investigation.

And I want to turn the stage over first to assistant special agent in charge, Matt Foster of the FBI, and then special agent in charge, Mickey French of the ATF, to explain some of the resources that the federal government is going to bring to bear on this situation. Matt?

MATTHEW FOSTER, ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, NASHVILLE FBI OFFICE: Thank you, Don. The FBI stands with the city of Nashville today in this very tragic Christmas Day event. This is our city too. We live here, we work here and we're putting everything we have into finding who is responsible for what's happened here today.

As part of doing that, there are investigative leads to be pursued, there's also technical work that needs to happen, and we're standing with Metro National Police Department and our federal partners and our state partners to bring every resource we can possibly bring to bear to find out what happened here today and to bring those responsible to justice.

[13:10:00]

The investigative leads, I'm sure you understand, is not something that we can talk about. As we continue to pursue every tip, I would ask the public to go to www.fbi.gov/nashville, www.fbi.gov/nashville, where an online tip submission process has been set up. Please tell us what you know. We need your leads. We need your help. You can also call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Call in tip information. If you know anything about what happened today, we'd appreciate your help.

On the technical side our focus will be on bringing the technical experts of the FBI from across the country, including the FBI laboratory, our hazardous devices school and our experts from evidence response teams nationwide into Nashville to process the massive crime scene, along with the ATF, Metro National P.D. and many other partners who are part of this effort will continue. We will find out what happened. That's all.

MICKEY FRENCH, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, ATF: Good afternoon. My name is Mickey French. I am the special agent in charge for the ATF field division. ATF is continuing to be a critical partner with Metro Nashville Police Department as well as our federal counterparts.

ATF responded this morning with several groups and personnel from Nashville field division. We've also activated the national response team. That particular team is made up of specialists as well, certified specialists, chemists, engineers, as well as evidence recovery, interview teams and so forth. We'll be coordinating that with Metro National Police Department as well as the FBI, and we'll put together a team that is going to collectively work this investigation to the fullest.

Our main priority is obviously to keep our Nashville citizens safe and secure and we will work jointly with everybody here to do that. Thank you.

CHIEF WILLIAM SWANN, NASHVILLE FIRE DIRECTOR: Good afternoon. I'm going to give you just a quick update. I know Don earlier has mentioned as far as the fire department's role with EMS, we did transport three individuals with minor injuries. But right now, what we're doing is with our structural engineers along with our urban search and rescue, hazmat teams, we're going into the buildings making sure, number one, that the building is sound and ensuring that there are no other victims or anyone that are there.

So, a lot of moving parts, again, my hat goes off to all of the teams working together as one unit. And we'll continue to work until the job is done. So, thank you.

DON AARON, SPOKESMAN, METRO NASHVILLE POLICE: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the update as we know it at present. If there is another briefing for this afternoon, we'll let you know. But you pretty much know what we know at this juncture as far as our community is concerned. Again, to reiterate, we know of no other imminent danger to the city at this point. The bomb dogs going through the downtown area now are doing that as a precaution, OK?

I can't hear you.

QUESTION: Do we have a number yet, maybe an estimate of how many buildings have been damaged in this incident?

AARON: I'll talk with Joseph Pleasant from OEM. I can tell you that several of the buildings on Second Avenue have structural damage. Several of them have been damaged, some more than others. But we'll get that for you.

I know Chief Swann said the fire department is looking at those structural issues now to determine any more potential impact.

QUESTION: But while (INAUDIBLE), at this point, do you know the target, do you know the purpose of why this happened?

AARON: As the FBI said, we will find that out. There are a number of people working right now on Christmas Day running leads throughout the city, from our police department, the FBI, ATF. Answers will be forthcoming. We can't discuss those with you now for exactly what we're looking at. But answers, I'm sure, will be forthcoming.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) a body found?

AARON: I have no information about anybody being found. We do not know whether anyone was in the R.V. when it exploded. We do not know whether anyone was in the R.V. when it exploded.

[13:15:02]

So I can't tell you at this point whether there's a potential for a fatality in that scenario.

QUESTION: There's megaphone that was warning people to leave. Do we know if that was coming from the truck or is it coming from somewhere else? Do we know?

AARON: It is believed it was coming from the R.V.

QUESTION: Coming from the R.V.?

AARON: Yes.

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)

AARON: There were announcements coming from the R.V. And that's the extent of what we can say at this point.

QUESTION: Is there any surveillance footage that police are investigating right now?

AARON: There are cameras throughout the downtown area. Yes. We have been reviewing downtown cameras and that is all part of the totality of the investigation.

QUESTION: Don, you mentioned some people may have been taken to central precincts, whether they were just witnesses, to give a statement, to share what they saw. Has anything come to fruition from that that you can share?

AARON: Just providing more pieces to the puzzle, more information. As the Chief Drake said, we had a number of officers, several officers on Second Avenue who were working to protect the public when the explosion occurred. As he said, one of those officers was knocked off his feet.

We have some counselors with our officers, our behavioral health folks are with those officers, ensuring that they're OK. I mean, they went through a very traumatic experience themselves.

QUESTION: Can you speak to just -- I mean, really, it is amazing how these officers and first responders brought into the face of danger. They knew, according to that R.V., that there was some kind of threat and they continued to use their time to get people out.

AARON: Well, they went to the residential areas on Second Avenue and did their best to get people to safety. Obviously, they heard the announcements coming from this vehicle. They took them seriously. And we're working to seal the streets to protect folks and we think it worked. We think lives were saved by those officers doing just that.

All right, thanks very much, folks.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): And just to recap what you were listening to, a press conference there in Nashville, where just a few hours, shortly after 6:00 A.M. local time, police were called to an R.V. After that, there was a message, a recording that the R.V. would be detonating in 15 minutes.

At that time, the police chief, John Drake, said that the police that were on the scene located others in the area, trying to get them out of the scene, given that message from the R.V. They also called the bomb squad as well. Then, subsequently, the R.V. did, in fact, explode.

The police there saying that there was an act of heroism because lives were saved given that 15-minute time window where police were able to get local residents and civilians out of harm's way.

Police went on to say that one officer was knocked to the ground. They are in emotional trauma and some minor injuries as well, but they are currently sweeping the downtown area to make sure everyone is safe.

As of now, there is no concern about additional devices throughout the area throughout Downtown Nashville. They are just taking extra precaution to make sure that the area is indeed safe and the FBI, ATF, federal agents on this investigation right now early into the hours, this could have been much worse as you just look at the damage given the massive explosion caused by the R.V. at 6:00 A.M., Christmas morning.

Thankfully it was a deserted area at the time. There were some injured, three injured. They were not life-threatening injuries. They were taken to the hospital. But also of interest is that they don't appear to have many leads at this point, asking the public to call in and notify them if they have any information. They are interested in hearing from the public and no indication as to whether the bomber, the suspects were inside of that R.V., maybe giving you a sense of the magnitude of that explosion at this moment.

I want to bring in Evan Perez and Juliette Kayyem for more on this.

So, Juliette, it's reassuring to hear that they believe there are no more devices in the area. But from what you heard from that presser and that voice recording that went off when police arrived at that R.V., what does that tell you?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So we're going to be really careful about motivation today because there's been lots of discussion. We don't know the motivation and the U.S. attorney was clear on that, so there's a difference between intentional and then something like terrorism, which would be sort of a targeted attack.

So, what we are looking at now obviously, and I am quite confident that within the next 48 hours, this is how it always happens, we'll have more evidence, likely suspects. There are too many cameras. There's a car there with evidence in it, fingerprints, whatever else they can get.

[13:20:05]

So, I'm pretty confident that the physical side of this will get solved relatively quickly.

And I just want to make it clear, this is an interesting attack, intentional attack, because it appears -- it more than appears that whoever did the announcements did not, not want a mass casualty event. So then you have to ask what did they want.

And investigators will be looking at two things, either a building or a facility or did they want first responders to respond to the call. Those are the options essentially that investigators will be looking at this stage, again, without any clarity on motivation.

So, CNN will be very careful about that right now and simply look at whether the investigation is going. But that's basically your options, not a mass casualty event, thank goodness. So you look at the building, some facility, critical infrastructure, or you look at the possibility of a first responder attack, people rushing in.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, it's such an important point. Because if you just look at the evidence as it played out this morning before even knowing about this prerecorded message that went off from the R.V., one would have to say if the intent was mass casualty, this was not how you would do it on Christmas morning in a deserted area and, thankfully, that's not what transpired.

But, Evan Perez, we know the acting attorney general has been involved now and notified, Rosen. And he said that the Nashville area there will have all of the help they need and resources they need from the federal government. We heard from the FBI officials, as well as ATF. What are they going to be doing the next few hours?

PEREZ: Well, one of the things that they're doing right now is they're flooding agents and some of their technical experts into that area. The Memphis FBI office is sending agents and investigators. The ATF says that they're bringing in national response team. This is, frankly, some of the best people to -- what they do is the investigate scenes like this, bomb scenes, fires, things like this.

And they have all of the expertise. They have chemists who will be coming to try to examine the R.V. and the buildings around there to see what exactly was the accelerant, what was it that burst into flames, because that's one of the first things that the witnesses have reported. They said that there was some damage to some buildings and even some fires that resulted from this large explosion.

One of the things that I want to call attention to is, it appears that the building there, the closest building, the building that suffered a lot of damage is the AT&T switch building. It's like a technical building. It doesn't have, frankly, usually a lot of people in there, if any people at all, and especially at 6:00 A.M. on Christmas morning. There's hardly anybody in that area. But, certainly, that building is the type of unoccupied -- largely unoccupied building. So, again, that's another thing that plays into this investigation.

And so that, I think, is part of what the investigators are looking into. As you guys said, whoever did this, broadcasting a message, saying that this -- to stay away from the vehicle, it is going to explode in the next 15 minutes, things like that appear to be geared towards not causing a mass casualty incident and that's one of the things that's obviously a big clue that investigators are pursuing.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): But, again, Juliette, you just look at these images, it looks like either a tornado ripped through Downtown Nashville or a war zone. That gives you just the sense of the magnitude of this explosion. And while it was reassuring to hear from the police and local authorities that they do not believe that there are other devices throughout the area and that the area will be safe and civilians hopefully will be allowed back sometime soon. What does that tell you about what they know and being able to say that at this time?

KAYYEM (voice-over): So, this is -- yes. The clarity by which they said that the state or city weren't under threat is a clue. I mean, in other words, they're not going to tell the public you're safe if they believe that there might other bombs out there. So, do they have someone in custody, they're not saying yet that they're hearing from. That's something that we may find out in the next couple of hours.

But I do want to focus on what Evan said about the building. So, if you want a lot of people dead for a political reason, you don't do this, because this is serious, serious explosives.

[13:25:01]

This is something that would have killed a lot of people. But for the fact it is at 6:30 in the morning or 6:00 in the morning, Christmas morning, in a sort of industrial part of downtown. When your producer first called me this morning, the first thing I asked was, was it a church, because it is Christmas? So, this is my fear. And so that gratefulness makes you wonder, well, what's going on here. And so, you're looking at the building.

And it is a piece of critical infrastructure. I know people will look at AT&T and its relationship with CNN. We don't know. But what we do know, it is a piece of critical infrastructure. So, if it was the target, that's where the investigation is going to head.

And the final thing I'll say is these are serious explosives by just looking at the pictures. But this was a well-planned out, coordinated non-mass casualty event. So, someone is thinking this through of what they wanted to do, and that's where the investigation will head.

GOLODRYGA (voice-over): Yes, extremely sophisticated when you look at the scale of this explosion and the debris there on the streets in downtown Nashville.

Thankfully, no one critically injured at the time and the police now saying that they don't have concern about additional devices, and they are sweeping the downtown area just as a precautionary measure to make sure that everyone is safe.

This could have had much more tragic, much worse impact. Thankfully, that is not the case. And we will be covering this throughout the afternoon.

But for now, I want thank Evan Perez and Juliette Kayyem. We appreciate it.

And still ahead, more on our breaking news, President Trump has been briefed on that explosion in Nashville. What we are hearing from the president's team today, that's coming up next.

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