NASHVILLE — A 911 call set off a massive police response in downtown Nashville Friday afternoon.
Around 3:30 p.m. Friday, a person used a voice-changing device to call a 911 dispatcher. The caller reported they had placed pipe bombs in trash cans at Out of the Ordinary restaurant.
Brown County Sheriff’s Department deputies and Nashville Police officers rushed to the area and began evacuating Van Buren to Franklin streets and Old School Way to Franklin Street. Also responding were Indiana State Police troopers, members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Indiana Department of Natural Resource conservation officers.
While officers were on the scene, the 911 call reported “watching over” the scene, and said they were armed with a sniper rifle. According to police, the caller was giving the dispatcher descriptions of what officers were doing and about the vehicles at the scene. The caller threatened to shoot and kill responding officers.
The Sheriff’s Department used heat-sensing drones to see if there was anything on the rooftops of buildings. After not finding anyone, ISP canines trained for bomb detection searched the area and found no bombs.
Brown County Sheriff Scott Southerland, investigators determined the caller was using a restricted phone number that was traceable to a computer. The call traced to a Canadian site, Southerland added, with IP addresses bouncing from Iman, Jordan, Florida, New York, and more. The caller was also using a publicly accessible webcam hosted by EarthCam that overlooked Van Buren Street to the stoplight at Main Street to view officers’ activities. The webcam has been taken offline.
The investigation is still ongoing.
“We don’t deal with this stuff every day,” Smock said. “Obviously it was a shock to the little town of Nashville.”
While the threat was unfounded, that didn’t stop the police response from causing widespread panic.
“It’s small town USA and this is not a normal situation,” said Warren Sargent, the production manager at the Brown County Playhouse.
Sargent said the scare forced them to cancel a performance of “A Christmas Carol.” The theatre honored Friday night tickets for Saturday night’s performance but lost some money due to refunds.
“We’ve kind of got the reputation of being a Norman Rockwell-style Christmas around here,” Sargent said. “To have that type of disruption is really disheartening.”
The loss of customers was the biggest disappointment for business owners in the town. This final weekend before Christmas is normally one of their busiest.
“Today’s business has been way down,” May said. “I’m afraid it’s because of what happened, I hope people aren’t afraid to come back.”
Visitors said they were shocked to hear of that happening in this normally quiet town and say they’re not scared.
“It’s perfectly safe down here,” Jeanna Mattison said. “It’s a small town community.”
Nashville Police said they don’t believe the caller is from anywhere near the town. The department said it will conduct its part of the investigation and then will turn over the case to the FBI.
Anyone who has any information about what happened is asked to call 911.
