The Oklahoma City Bombing
| “ | Today our nation joins with you in grief. We mourn with you. We share your hope against hope that some may still survive. We thank all those who have worked so heroically to save lives and to solve this crime -- those here in Oklahoma and those who are all across this great land, and many who left their own lives to come here to work hand in hand with you. We pledge to do all we can to help you heal the injured, to rebuild this city, and to bring to justice those who did this evil. | „ |
| ~ President Bill Clinton's speech in the aftermath of the bombing. |
The Oklahoma City Bombing (Perpetrated April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) was a mass bombing event set in motion by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. A Ryder truck filled with improvised explosive devices was planted in the building's parking lot and at 9:02 AM, the bomb was detonated by McVeigh, in reference to the start of the fire that ended the Waco Seige. McVeigh was arrested 90 minutes after and after several weeks was sentenced to death by lethal injection, while Terry Nichols was given life in prison. 2 others were alleged accomplices for knowing about the bombing but not warning the government, one was granted immunity for her testimony, and the other was sentenced for 12 years in prison and was released in 2007. It was the deadliest act of terrorism to take place on American soil until the September 11 attacks.
The bombing edit
McVeigh entered Oklahoma City at 8:50 a.m. At 8:57 a.m., the Regency Towers Apartments' lobby security camera that had recorded Nichols's pickup truck three days earlier recorded the Ryder truck heading towards the Murrah Federal Building. At the same moment, McVeigh lit the five-minute fuse. 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 9:02 a.m. (14:02 UTC), the Ryder truck, containing over 4,800 pounds (2,200 kg) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture, detonated in front of the north side of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. 168 people were killed and hundreds more injured. One third of the building was destroyed by the explosion, which created a 30-foot-wide (9.1 m), 8-foot-deep (2.4 m) crater on NW 5th Street next to the building. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 4-block radius, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The broken glass alone accounted for 5 percent of the death total and 69 percent of the injuries outside the Murrah Federal Building. The blast destroyed or burned 86 cars around the site. The destruction of the buildings left several hundred people homeless and shut down a number of offices in downtown Oklahoma City. The explosion was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage.
The effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of TNT, and could be heard and felt up to 55 miles (89 km) away. Seismometers at the Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, 16.1 miles (25.9 km) away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter magnitude scale.
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.
Trivia edit
- The bombing would partially inspire Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to carry out the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999. Klebold and Harris intended to exceed the number of casulties of the bombing.
- Though it has never been confirmed, it is widely believed that the white supremacist group Aryan Republican Army were involved by funneling robbery money to help fund the bombing.
- McVeigh drew inspiration from William Luther Pierce's novel The Turner Diaries, in which a similar attack on an FBI building occured.
- The Murrah building had been previously targeted in October 1983 by Christian Identity group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, including founder James Ellison and Richard Snell. The group had plotted to park "a van or trailer in front of the Federal Building and blow it up with rockets detonated by a timer."
Gallery edit
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Timothy McVeigh -
Terry Nichols
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