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Oklahoma city bombing dateOklahoma city bombing date.Oklahoma City Bombing Fast Facts
The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Perpetrated by two anti- government extremists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols , the bombing happened at a.
Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession. Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices. McVeigh, a veteran of the Gulf War and a sympathizer with the U.
Nichols had assisted with the bomb's preparation. Motivated by his dislike for the U. When the FBI raided McVeigh's home, it found a telephone number that led them to a farm where McVeigh had purchased supplies for the bombing. Sentenced to death, McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, , at the U. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in Michael and Lori Fortier testified against McVeigh and Nichols; Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the United States government, and Lori received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.
In response to the bombing, the U. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of , which tightened the standards for habeas corpus in the United States. On April 19, , the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing. Remembrance services are held every year on April 19, at the time of the explosion.
There was a firefight and ultimately a siege of the compound, resulting in the burning and shooting deaths of David Koresh and 75 others. McVeigh later said that, instead of attacking a building, he had contemplated assassinating Attorney General Janet Reno ; FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi , who had become infamous among extremists because of his participation in the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges; and others.
McVeigh claimed he sometimes regretted not carrying out an assassination campaign. He regarded the presence of additional law enforcement agencies, such as the Secret Service or the U. Marshals Service , as a bonus. Murrah Federal Building. McVeigh chose the Murrah building because he expected its glass front to shatter under the impact of the blast. He also believed that its adjacent large, open parking lot across the street might absorb and dissipate some of the force, and protect the occupants of nearby non-federal buildings.
McVeigh and Nichols purchased or stole the materials they needed to manufacture the bomb, and stored them in rented sheds. Moore, and with Nichols ignited the devices outside Nichols's home in Herington, Kansas.
Nichols bought an additional pound 23 kg bag on October 18, In October , McVeigh showed Michael and his wife Lori Fortier a diagram he had drawn of the bomb he wanted to build. Including the weight of the sixteen U. McVeigh and his accomplices then attempted to purchase U. World Wide Racing Fuels representative Steve LeSueur, one of three dealers of nitromethane, was at his unit when he noted a "young man in fatigues" wanted to purchase nitromethane and hydrazine.
McVeigh, using an assumed name, then called Tipton's office. Suspicious of his behavior, Tipton refused to sell McVeigh the fuel. The next round of the NHRA championship tour was the Chief Auto Parts Nationals at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis, Texas , where McVeigh posed as a motorcycle racer and attempted to purchase nitromethane on the pretext that he and some fellow bikers needed it for racing. But there were no nitromethane-powered motorcycles at the meeting, and he did not have an NHRA competitors' license.
McVeigh rented a storage space in which he stockpiled seven crates of inch-long 46 cm Tovex "sausages", 80 spools of shock tube , and electric blasting caps , which he and Nichols had stolen from a Martin Marietta Aggregates quarry in Marion, Kansas.
McVeigh made a prototype bomb that was detonated in the desert to avoid detection. Think about the people as if they were storm troopers in Star Wars. They may be individually innocent, but they are guilty because they work for the Evil Empire. Later, speaking about the military mindset with which he went about the preparations, he said, "You learn how to handle killing in the military.
I face the consequences, but you learn to accept it. Kling, an alias he adopted because he knew an Army soldier named Kling with whom he shared physical characteristics, and because it reminded him of the Klingon warriors of Star Trek.
Please do not tow. Will move by April On April 17—18, , McVeigh and Nichols removed the bomb supplies from their storage unit in Herington, Kansas , where Nichols lived, and loaded them into the Ryder rental truck. McVeigh then added a dual-fuse ignition system accessible from the truck's front cab. He drilled two holes in the cab of the truck under the seat, while two holes were also drilled in the body of the truck.
One green cannon fuse was run through each hole into the cab. These time-delayed fuses led from the cab through plastic fish-tank tubing conduit to two sets of non-electric blasting caps which would ignite around pounds kg of the high-grade explosives that McVeigh stole from a rock quarry.
Of the 13 filled barrels, nine contained ammonium nitrate and nitromethane, and four contained a mixture of the fertilizer and about 4 U. McVeigh's original plan had been to detonate the bomb at a.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. McVeigh entered Oklahoma City at a. Three minutes later, still a block away, he lit the two-minute fuse. He parked the Ryder truck in a drop-off zone situated under the building's day-care center, exited and locked the truck. As he headed to his getaway vehicle, he dropped the keys to the truck a few blocks away.
At a. One third of the building was destroyed by the explosion, [68] which created a foot-wide 9. The effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5, pounds 2, kg of TNT , [58] [73] and could be heard and felt up to 55 miles 89 km away. The collapse of the northern half of the building took roughly 7 seconds. As the truck exploded, it first destroyed the column next to it, designated as G20, and shattered the entire glass facade of the building.
The shockwave of the explosion forced the lower floors upwards, before the fourth and fifth floors collapsed onto the third floor, which housed a transfer beam that ran the length of the building and was being supported by four pillars below and was supporting the pillars that hold the upper floors. The added weight meant that the third floor gave way along with the transfer beam, which in turn caused the collapse of the building.
Initially, the FBI had three hypotheses about responsibility for the bombing: international terrorists, possibly the same group that had carried out the World Trade Center bombing ; a drug cartel , carrying out an act of vengeance against DEA agents in the building's DEA office; and anti-government radicals attempting to start a rebellion against the federal government.
McVeigh was arrested within 90 minutes of the explosion, [77] as he was traveling north on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County , Oklahoma. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh for driving his yellow Mercury Marquis without a license plate, and arrested him for having a concealed weapon.
Need more. While investigating the VIN on an axle of the truck used in the explosion and the remnants of the license plate, federal agents were able to link the truck to a specific Ryder rental agency in Junction City, Kansas. Using a sketch created with the assistance of Eldon Elliot, owner of the agency, the agents were able to implicate McVeigh in the bombing. However, McGown noted, "People are so used to signing their own name that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use.
That's what [McVeigh] did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him. After an April 21, , court hearing on the gun charges, but before McVeigh's release, federal agents took him into custody as they continued their investigation into the bombing.
Having been tipped off by the arrival of police and helicopters that a bombing suspect was inside, a restless crowd began to gather outside the jail. While McVeigh's requests for a bulletproof vest or transport by helicopter were denied, [83] authorities did use a helicopter to transport him from Perry to Oklahoma City.
Federal agents obtained a warrant to search the house of McVeigh's father, Bill, after which they broke down the door and wired the house and telephone with listening devices. Several Arab-American groups criticized the FBI for racial profiling , and the subsequent media coverage for publicizing the man's name.
Freeh told a press conference that the man was never a suspect, and was instead treated as a "witness" to the Oklahoma City bombing, who assisted the government's investigation. An estimated people were inside the building when the bomb exploded.
Murrah Federal Building, one person in the Athenian Building, one woman in a parking lot across the street, a man and woman in the Oklahoma Water Resources building and a rescue worker struck on the head by debris.
The victims ranged in age from three months to 73 years and included three pregnant women. Of those law enforcement agents, four were members of the U. Secret Service; two were members of the U.
Customs Service; one was a member of the U. Drug Enforcement Administration and one was a member of the U. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Six of the victims were U. Army ; two were members of the U. Air Force , and two were members of the U. Marine Corps. The majority of the injuries were abrasions , severe burns, and bone fractures. McVeigh later acknowledged the casualties, saying, "I didn't define the rules of engagement in this conflict.
The rules, if not written down, are defined by the aggressor. It was brutal, no holds barred. Women and kids were killed at Waco and Ruby Ridge.
You put back in [the government's] faces exactly what they're giving out. The EMS command post was set up almost immediately following the attack and oversaw triage, treatment, transportation, and decontamination. Two hundred and ten patients were transported from the primary triage center to nearby hospitals within the first couple of hours following the bombing. Within the first hour, 50 people were rescued from the Murrah Federal Building.
The day of the bombing, people were treated at St. Anthony Hospital, eight blocks from the blast, over 70 people were treated at Presbyterian Hospital, 41 people were treated at University Hospital, and 18 people were treated at Children's Hospital.
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