Former ATF special agent in charge Bernard Zapor weighs in on developments in massive Christmas morning explosion in downtown Nashville.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pete, thank you Rachel.
Well as we continue to learn
more details from the explosion
that rocked Nashville. Yesterday,
city officials have called the
blast an intentional act
here with what it is and what it
may be former special agent in
charge of the ATF Bernard Zafe
R.
Thank you so much for being here.
So considering the location the
time earlier in the morning
that there was warning there
may have been shots fired and
there might be remains on the
site. What could we know and
what are they hoping to learn at
this moment as they investigate?
Well, certainly, the
investigative team right now
has a substantial amount of
information, so investigative
management is the most critical
thing for them at this point
and they have a lot of things
with the ATF national response
team. The FBI evidence recovery
teams of managing both witness
statements and, as the evidence
speaks, and they absolutely have
to be committed to allowing the
evidence to speak and not
speculate at this point on
motive that allows the
information coming into
start a frame work as to the
possibilities.
Secondly, of course they still
have remaining public safety
concerns.
They need to derive anything
that would indicate there are
other potential devices or
potential suspects, and then
they have. The fact of there may
be other human remains to
recover on the site,
PETE Bernard, when you say let
the evidence speak thats, an
interesting phrase. I get
what it means.
What is the most important piece
of evidence? They be looking for
right now,
theres going to be many
direct things, so you have a
component of the actual the
bomb investigators that will
go into the check, call analysis.
They will do a number of
recovery,
as that team is working on its
going to be speaking to the
incident command and incident
command is also getting all of
the direct input from evidence.
Thats coming from witness
interviews from video, all of
the outlying inputs are coming
in, and so, ideally you have
either a team or an individual
that really thinks in the
abstract in much like a
homicide investigation, its an
after the fact event. So, as
the evidence is coming in
its starting to build a frame
work of possibilities here
in conjunction with that is the
public safety role here to
just see, if theres anything
thats speaking to the fact that
there may be other things and
then, on top of all of that, I
guarantee you. The investigators
are doing the cyber search on
this for every possibility,
monitoring social media for
comments beyond that, and
all these things have to come
into a central source, so these
teams can develop theory in
terms of motive intent and any
current remaining threat.
Pete Bernard, you know, I know
in your profession. You live in
the world of evidence.
This is morning television.
Sometimes we speculate
go as far as you want, but what,
based on what youre looking at
right now professionally? What
is it leading you toward, as you
observe it, of what this might be
about?
Well, theres, some things
that are obvious just based on
whats available to the public.
You have a large vehicle borne
improvised
explosive device placed in a
metropolitan area
in terms of the strange
broadcasting from this rv the
fact that law enforcement
was able to arrive on scene and
begin an evacuation and then, of
course, the things about the
detonation time, and all of
that
I would stress again, it is
absolutely important for the
investigators to be
motive agnostic at this point
and let the information speak,
I would guess that right now,
investigators are starting to
develop some pretty solid ideas
of whats happening here and
you know even say, for example,
if it was an event where the
person responsible was Emoli
ated in this blast, they
are still going out to the
public for more information,
because its very hard to do
something like this in a
singular event and its very
hard to do this as an individual.
Without making some connection,
you have to buy supplies, you
have to communicate, and so a lot
coming in,
I will not speculate on this
other than the fact that it
is absolutely unique with the
fact that there was the
broadcasting of evacuation.
I dont recall that in any
previous historical events,
the blast themself, although
extensive damage, obviously that
rv, could have been a
massive vehicle born improvised
explosive device. That really
could have done significantly
more damage, but then also its
important. To remember the
complexity of this thing.
There is evidence and things
that are going to be a
tremendous amount of distance
from where the actual blast is
so thats. Why? You would have
seen yesterday, investigators on
rooftops and the need for
downtown to have put a
curfew and cordon off a really.
Transcript generated on 2020-12-26.