TN - RV Explosion, Nashville, 25 Dec 2020

[gitana1]

I don't know about this one y'all. Some quick thoughts.

No known claim of responsibility suggests maybe lone wolf or non-political motives?
Also seen reports of no increased chatter detected among extremists, which isn't dispositive, but interesting. May not rule out a test run, and/or copycats later though.

Not sure about AT&T connection. A disgruntled former employee who is disgruntled enough to do this I'd expect to have more animosity towards his coworkers. It's not impossible, but it feels off to me for some reason. Someone who would be this disgruntled about AT&T but not specific individuals who work there would suggest someone whose grievances were more abstract - maybe someone whose service had been cut off, or who had sued the company for some reason, or even someone freaked out over 5G or something.

Could be there's potentially something there with cutting off phone communication and Christmas morning, combined with this pandemic and lockdown, etc. Like if I can't see/talk to my family, you can't either.

Or the AT&T thing can just be coincidental. This attack drew a lot of attention: the timer, the music, the speakers,etc. A touristy vehicle in a touristy neighborhood. Christmas morning. If this was someone suicidal maybe they felt invisible. And this was a way of drawing the attention of the world onto them and their pain. Perhaps this area just had some past significance for them- maybe they once worked in the area or played in clubs there or something.

Most remote chance is the rare attack that is staged merely by someone who wants to be a hero and respond to an attack. That was an early theory of investigators at the explosion in West, Texas, for example, although ultimately no charges were brought in that case and no conclusive determination ever made on the actual cause of the blast.

Intelligent, thought-provoking post.

 

[gitana1]

I wonder why Christmas Day and not Thanksgiving? (From the UK, it sometimes almost seems that Thanksgiving is a bigger occasion than Christmas).

Christmas is MUCH bigger this year.

 

[PingTheRouter]

Christmas is MUCH bigger this year.

its also a religious day and thanksgiving is not

 

[Trinitee]

It could be disgruntled employee but this is a huge bomb that required a ton of time to make. If they were disgruntled, they were disgruntled a long time ago. Anbody with an agenda, political or otherwise, it seems like they should have claimed it by now. What’s the point of having a cause if nobody knows what it is. Although the destroying communication infrastructure is an interesting thought. I thought of the Unabomber when someone brought that up.

Responding to the bolded above, not necessarily. I can tell you from first hand experience, how utterly soul crushing AT&T can be. They can, they will, and they do destroy employee lives without giving it a second thought. I will not be surprised if this was a disgruntled employee. I am a former employee and an individual with a disability who they treated abhorrently. It has been almost fifteen years since I separated from the company and I am still tortured by the memories and routinely have dreams/nightmares about my time there.

I agree with Inobu, the average individual would not know the location or importance of a CO (Central Office). Someone who has inside knowledge of the telecom industry would. Most CO’s are unmanned nowadays so there was probably no one there when the bomb exploded. They probably had a frame tech on call just in case.

 

[Lusitana]

I don’t understand why it can’t be a former employee. This person could’ve been messing with explosives for a long time. Had issues at work, maybe was fired and decided it was time to go ahead and do the big thing.

 

[Dallas Volunteer]

These Nashville officers ran into danger, saved lives before explosion

Officers responded to a shots fired call just a block away from Broadway at 5:30 a.m. when they spotted a suspicious RV parked outside 166 2nd Ave. North.

Officers immediately began going door to door, evacuating apartments. Police also diverted one man who was walking his dog on 2nd Ave. just before the explosion occurred.These officers didn’t care about themselves," Chief Drake said. "They didn’t think about that. They cared about the citizens of Nashville. They went in and we’d be talking not about the debris that we have here but potential people.”

The officers who evacuated residents are:

• Officer Brenna Hosey, who has been with the department for 4 years;
• Officer James Luellen, who has been with the department for 3 years;
• Officer Michael Sipos, who has been with the department for 16-months;
• Officer Amanda Topping, who has been with the department for 21 months;
• Officer James Wells, who has been with the department for 21-months; and
• Sergeant Timothy Miller, who has been with the department for 11 years.

 

[Crosscntrymom]

I’m not seeing any new updates this morning—anyone else?

Because the bomber tried to minimize human casualties, I’m leaning toward incapacitating the AT&T central office infrastructure as the primary goal. What’s stored there that isn’t accessible remotely?

OR

Proof of concept/trial run for something larger? But that doesn’t really make sense. Domestic terrorists seem to want to maximize loss of life.

I would think LE has already tracked the RV.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

I’m not seeing any new updates this morning—anyone else?

Because the bomber tried to minimize human casualties, I’m leaning toward incapacitating the AT&T central office infrastructure as the primary goal. What’s stored there that isn’t accessible remotely?

OR

Proof of concept/trial run for something larger? But that doesn’t really make sense. Domestic terrorists seem to want to maximize loss of life.

I would think LE has already tracked the RV.

And if they found indeed human tissue remains, would they they already have done the DNA on it and know the ethnicity of the person blown up?

 

[Sheila Terranova]

John Weld Peck federal building.....The RV was parked near. That sounds like the Oklahoma bombing. Anti feds.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

I don’t understand why it can’t be a former employee. This person could’ve been messing with explosives for a long time. Had issues at work, maybe was fired and decided it was time to go ahead and do the big thing.

So here's my thinking on that.

We can all agree this isn't normal behavior. This person is really upset about...something.

If a person were upset because they felt they were unjustly fired or bullied by coworkers, etc., usually we see that manifest as some kind of mass shooting targeting specific people. Not blaring a siren trying to warn people and avoid casualties.

On the other hand, someone who is mad at the company from a distance might act differently. Maybe they couldn't pay their AT&T bill and the company disabled their service costing them business or something. Maybe they just think the local cell tower made them ill. (See this story for some people who think this: The Town Without Wi-Fi | Washingtonian)
That person isn't mad at Bob in accounting or Susie in HR, they're just mad at the faceless company in general. So that person, not having a specific person to fix blame on might instead target infrastructure.

I could be wrong, but that's my logic.

 

[raja]

Was there evidence that gunshots were actually fired? I think the call about shots was to bring LE to the area. Even the loud speaker for evacuation could have been a call to get LE in the area. This was an attack against LE and communications for the local area. The fact that it happened on a Christian holiday says even more to me.

 

[Laughing]

Sophisticated indeed.
A bombing that specifically planned for no casualties?
Nashville?
AT&T, 911 and airport went out for hours.

Were they able to hack something major in that timeframe?
Was this a test?

BBM

This event is so very 'movie plot.' Remember Inside Man with Denzel Washington? The initial bank robbery was just to -- well I won't say, but highly recommend the film.

In the group that wants to know everything that happened within the area of service outage on Christmas morning.

What security systems are Internet-dependent?

jmho ymmv lrr

 

[Blacksheep13]

BBM

This event is so very 'movie plot.' Remember Inside Man with Denzel Washington? The initial bank robbery was just to -- well I won't say, but highly recommend the film.

In the group that wants to know everything that happened within the area of service outage on Christmas morning.

What security systems are Internet-dependent?

jmho ymmv lrr

This is a good point. This could have been a feint to draw distraction while something else went down.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

This is a good point. This could have been a feint to draw distraction while something else went down.

I thought of that earlier like maybe a jewel or art heist. Those things happen but they really are super rare. I mean, so is an event like this I guess, but still.

I ended up deciding against it because the amount of damage done was just so massive. It's overkill for someone who just needs to create a brief diversion. If you're going to cause this much damage, which is pretty hard to do, I'm going to assume you really wanted to cause this much damage as your primary motive.

 

[happyday]

This is a good point. This could have been a feint to draw distraction while something else went down.

I won’t be surprised if this is the case. Because if this was sending a message, it was poorly thought out and pretty much failed. What was the message? Nobody really knows. Yeah, it was parked outside of a data center that most people don’t know anything about and it disabled the internet and 911 for a few hours. But why? What does it say? Nobody taking credit.

That was a huge bomb for no clear reason and warning people away to reduce casualties. Head scratcher for sure.

 

[TTF14]

BBM

This event is so very 'movie plot.' Remember Inside Man with Denzel Washington? The initial bank robbery was just to -- well I won't say, but highly recommend the film.

In the group that wants to know everything that happened within the area of service outage on Christmas morning.

What security systems are Internet-dependent?

jmho ymmv lrr

Never heard of it. Gonna watch it today!

 

[MrsWatson]

According to CNN, there were actual gunshots, not just a call about them. I wondered about that as well.

Possible human remains found near site, police chief says - CNN

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I don't think this is a one time deal. I think we should expect more in other states. The next one might not be an rv. Maybe a Uhaul or something maybe even a van. That is also a way to show these people are everywhere.

And there are two possibilities with that. Either a larger network who already plan more damage, or some lone crazy copycats who decide this was a pretty good idea to take out communications. I'm afraid we will see more.

 

[Cryptic]

I don't think I have ever heard of a terrorist being concerned about minimizing casualties. IMO, they use a body count to measure their success. This feels like homegrown terrorism to me. But Iraq has been threatening to hit at us this week. The possibilities are endless.

Terrorists operate in different socio political environments and have different goals.

In Northern Ireland, causing civilian casualties amongst ordinary and non viciously partisan people could cost support from ones own side. Likewise, attacks on innocents could lead to retaliation from militants on the other side.

As a result, a certain number of IRA bombing attacks came with warnings. A good number of others, however, had no warnings. Whether or not a warning was made could depend on many things including the target, what Protestant militants had done or had not done recently, or the mindset of the particular IRA cell etc. etc. When warnings were given, they could be very brief.

Though casualties were minimized, the warned attacks were designed to produce a sense of panic (especially with multiple bombs in an area) and give the impression that the IRA could strike at will. Naturally, warned attacks came with credit claims and probably statements to the effect of: "Better listen to us, next time there might not be a warning(s)".

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I certainly don't know the motive nor can I guess. But to me when giving a 15 minute warning seems to have been done because in these horrid terrorists cases, both domestic or foreign actors ...the perp or perps know the police will converge on the area quickly.

I don't see him or her as trying to save lives. There wasn't any quarantee lives would be saved either.

No one who sets a bomb of this magnitude to explode really cares about human life.

Imo, They did know LE would converge into the area trying to save as many lives as possible, and thank God they did. LE acted just like the perp knew they would by running toward grave danger in order to save others while putting their own lives at great risk.

Anyone who is capable of doing something like this is up to no good, period. Imo, they aren't a do gooder by any stretch of the imagination.

Jmho