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Nashville police release bodycam footage of Christmas RV bombing

Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Nashville police have released body camera footage of the moments before and after a powerful Christmas morning bombing destroyed part of the city's downtown area.

The video from Metro Nashville Police Department officer Michael Sipos' body camera was released late Monday.

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It depicts his actions first before the explosion -- as he helped evacuate people near a parked RV that was broadcasting a warning message -- and then afterward as he returned to the scene after the blast.

The footage shows the chaos of the aftermath and startled people in the street being directed away from the scene just north of downtown Nashville's historic Honky Tonk district.

In the moments before the blast, Sipos is shown approaching the parked RV as its loudspeakers blared out a computerized female voice warning people to clear the area.

"That's so weird," he says. "That's like some (expletive) out of a movie."

Authorities have identified Anthony Quinn Warner as the bomber and say he died in the blast, which occurred outside an AT&T transmission building.

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No one was injured but damage along Second Avenue North was extensive, with dozens of buildings badly damaged, perhaps beyond repair. Cellphone service to three states was disrupted for several days due to the bombing.

Business owners were expected to be briefly allowed back into the area for the first time on Tuesday.

Warner's motive is not yet known, but ABC News reported investigators are probing the possibility he may have been motivated by a conspiracy theory about 5G cellphone technology, which falsely claims it can weaken the human immune system.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigations Director David Rausch said Warner's father worked for AT&T and that is also a potential motive.

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