Before it exploded and laid waste to a street in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, an RV played a peculiar choice of song: Petula Clark’s 1965 hit, ‘Downtown’. Amateur sleuths on Twitter pondered why it had been chosen.
Police in Nashville said on Sunday that, shortly before it exploded next to an AT&T building, an RV parked in the city’s downtown played an audio message over a loudspeaker: a recording of ‘Downtown’ by British singer Petula Clark.
BREAKING: @MNPDNashville officer says the RV used in the #nashvillebombing was playing the song “Downtown” by Petula Clark. Lyrics: “When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown.” pic.twitter.com/ywodTutLM0
Was there a deeper meaning to the message? Commenters on Twitter spun theories, suggesting that the bomber may have wanted to lend his deed a cinematic atmosphere, that he might have been a ‘Seinfeld’ or ‘Lost’ fan, or that he simply wanted to play a favorite song from his youth, among other, more outlandish, theories.
Whoever did this wanted to emulate some surrealistic scene from a horror or action movie. Just like how Osama Bin Laden wanted to emulate disaster movies for 9/11#NashvilleTerrorAttackhttps://t.co/0zEOTJUEmd
Who else immediately thought of the Seinfeld episode about Downtown…? #PetulaClark#nashvillebombingpic.twitter.com/0vgOVCjWio
Do you remember that part in Lost where they’re playing that song before shit goes down? https://t.co/qUBu4DzA08
Well, this seems like something a person the suspect’s age or older would have done. https://t.co/mSGz7US1Ll
The song wasn’t the only recording the RV blared before exploding. CCTV footage caught a female-voiced evacuation warning playing from the vehicle, and police said a countdown timer was heard leading up to the blast.
FBI agents named 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner as a “person of interest” on Saturday, and raided his house in Antioch, Tennessee. Agents with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have reportedly been asking locals whether Warner could have been motivated by “paranoia about 5G technology,” hence his choice of target.
Media reports have claimed that the bomber died in the explosion, after Metro Nashville Police Department Chief John Drake said on Friday that possible human remains were found near the blast site. This has not yet been confirmed, however.
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