Oklahoma City bombing

Perpetrated by anti-government extremists Timothy McVeigh, the mastermind,[3][4][5] and Terry Nichols, the bombing occurred at 9:02 a.m. and killed 167 people, injured 684, and destroyed more than one-third of the building, which had to be demolished.

In response to the bombing, the U.S. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which limited access to habeas corpus in the United States, among other provisions.

[30] He later decided to bomb a federal building as a response to the raids and to protest what he believed to be U.S. government efforts to restrict rights of private citizens, particularly those under the Second Amendment.

Potential targets in this campaign included United States Attorney General, Janet Reno, and FBI Hostage Rescue Team sniper, Lon Horiuchi.

[38] He said in his authorized biography that he wanted to minimize non-governmental casualties, so he ruled out Simmons Tower, a 40-story building in Little Rock, Arkansas, because a florist's shop occupied space on the ground floor.

[42] Though his execution was not confirmed to be a motive for the bombing, Fort Smith–based federal prosecutor Steven Snyder told the FBI in May 1995 that Snell wanted to blow up the Oklahoma City building as revenge for the IRS raiding his home.

McVeigh rented a storage space in which he stockpiled seven crates of 18-inch-long (46 cm) Tovex "sausages", 80 spools of shock tube, and 500 electric blasting caps, which he and Nichols had stolen from a Martin Marietta Aggregates quarry in Marion, Kansas.

[58][59] On April 16, 1995, he and Nichols drove to Oklahoma City, where he parked a getaway car, a yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis, several blocks from the Murrah Federal Building.

[63] They then drove to Geary Lake State Park, where they nailed boards onto the floor of the truck to hold the 13 barrels in place and mixed the chemicals using plastic buckets and a bathroom scale.

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 350 pounds (160 kg) of the high-grade explosives that McVeigh stole from a rock quarry.

[41] He also carried an envelope full of revolutionary materials that included a bumper sticker with the slogan, falsely attributed[71] to Thomas Jefferson, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty.

[75] At 9:02 a.m. (14:02 UTC), the Ryder truck, containing over 4,800 pounds (2,200 kg)[76] 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.

[13] Investigators discovered incriminating evidence at his home: ammonium nitrate and blasting caps, the electric drill used to drill out the locks at the quarry, books on bomb-making, a copy of Hunter (a 1989 novel by William Luther Pierce, the founder and chairman of the National Alliance, a white nationalist group) and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City, on which the Murrah Building and the spot where McVeigh's getaway car was hidden were marked.

[118][127] The device was determined to be a three-foot (.9-m) long TOW missile used in the training of federal agents and bomb-sniffing dogs;[6][128] although inert, it had been marked "live" in order to mislead arms traffickers in a planned law enforcement sting.

The United States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.He ordered that flags for all federal buildings be flown at half-staff for 30 days in remembrance of the victims.

President Clinton received many messages of sympathy, including those from Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and P. V. Narasimha Rao of India.

A photograph of firefighter Chris Fields emerging from the rubble with infant Baylee Almon, who later died in a nearby hospital, was reprinted worldwide and became a symbol of the attack.

The photo, taken by bank employee Charles H. Porter IV, won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and appeared on newspapers and magazines for months following the attack.

[164] On April 22, 1995, the Clintons spoke in the White House with over 40 federal agency employees and their children, and in a live nationwide television and radio broadcast, addressed their concerns.

[171] As the rescue effort wound down, the media interest shifted to the investigation, arrests, and trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and on the search for an additional suspect named "John Doe Number Two."

[178] OKBOMB was the largest criminal case in America's history, with FBI agents conducting 28,000 interviews, amassing 3.5 short tons (3.2 t) of evidence, and collecting nearly one billion pieces of information.

The defense was allowed to enter into evidence six pages of a 517-page Justice Department report criticizing the FBI crime laboratory and David Williams, one of the agency's explosives experts, for reaching unscientific and biased conclusions.

"[213] In the years since the bombing, scientists, security experts, and the ATF have called on Congress to develop legislation that would require customers to produce identification when purchasing ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and for sellers to maintain records of its sale.

[218] On April 6, 2010, House Bill 2750 was signed by Governor Brad Henry, requiring the bombing to be entered into the school curriculum for Oklahoma, U.S. and world history classes.

[232] Among the 52 security improvements were physical barriers, closed-circuit television monitoring, site planning and access, hardening of building exteriors to increase blast resistance, glazing systems to reduce flying glass shards and fatalities, and structural engineering design to prevent progressive collapse.

The National Geographic Channel documentary series Seconds From Disaster suggested that the Murrah Federal Building would probably have survived the blast had it been built according to California's earthquake design codes.

In evidence he cited the peaceful resolution of the Montana Freemen standoff in 1996, the government's $3.1 million settlement with Randy Weaver and his surviving children four months after the bombing, and April 2000 statements by Bill Clinton regretting his decision to storm the Branch Davidian compound.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, with consideration of other events, including the Oklahoma City bombing, the Federal Highway Administration proposed that major metropolitan areas create evacuation routes for civilians.

[242] For two years after the bombing the only memorials to the victims were plush toys, crucifixes, letters, and other personal items left by thousands of people at a security fence surrounding the site of the building.

[260] President George W. Bush made note of the anniversary in a written statement, part of which echoed his remarks on the execution of Timothy McVeigh in 2001: "For the survivors of the crime and for the families of the dead the pain goes on.

An aerial view from a helicopter of the Mount Carmel Center building. Large columns of smoke are arising from the left side of the building from a fire. One side of the building shows extensive damage. The building is surrounded by dirt paths.
McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco siege (shown above) as a reason why they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing.
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
A detailed map of Herington, Kansas , the general location where McVeigh and Nichols stored the ammonium nitrate fertilizer used for the construction of the bomb. The storage unit was located along US Highway 77 , adjacent to a Pizza Hut .
A detailed map of Junction City, Kansas (city limits in dark yellow), the general location where McVeigh purchased the Ryder truck used for the bomb. Grandview Plaza , the former location of the Dreamland Motel where McVeigh stayed in, is just to the east of Junction City along Interstate 70 (pink).
Geary County, Kansas (in red), where Geary Lake is located. This is where McVeigh and Nichols constructed the bomb.
Map showing the layout of downtown Oklahoma City near the bombed building. The map uses simple shapes to identify some notable nearby buildings and roads. A large circle covers half the map, illustrating the extent of damage from the bomb. A red path shows the path McVeigh took to get to the building with the Ryder truck, and a blue line shows his escape on foot.
McVeigh's movement in the Ryder truck (red dashed line) and escape on foot (blue dashed line) on the day of the bombing
An overhead view shows the Alfred P. Murrah building, half of it destroyed from the bomb's blast. Near the building are various rescue vehicles and cranes. Some damage is visible to nearby buildings.
An aerial view, looking from the north, of the destruction
An FBI sketch is shown on the left of the image on the suspected bomber looking forward, and on the right, an image of McVeigh looking at the camera. Two brown bars are visible on the top and bottom of the comparison image.
FBI sketch (left) and McVeigh (right).
McVeigh is located at the center of the image in a dark hallway wearing an orange jumpsuit and looking to the side. Around him are several FBI agents and police officers.
McVeigh about to exit the Perry, Oklahoma, courthouse on April 21, 1995
Diagram of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building with different color triangles on each floor. Some floors have more triangles than others, as well as different color ones. The title of the image is located on top, while a legend explaining the meaning of the different color triangles is on the bottom right.
Floor-by-floor diagram detailing the location of the victims in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
Several Air Force members and firefighters are clearing debris from the damaged building. Several yellow buckets are visible, which are being used to hold the debris. The destruction of the bombing is visible behind the rescuers.
U.S. Air Force personnel and firefighters removing rubble in the rescue attempt
The Alfred P. Murrah building is being demolished, and the image shows the building in mid-collapse. A Ryder truck is visible at the bottom left, and the Regency Towers building can be seen in the background at the far right. The demolition has created large clouds of dust that take up a portion of the image.
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building being demolished on May 23, 1995, over a month after the incident. The bomb used in the attack was housed in a Ryder truck similar to the one visible in the lower left of the photograph.
A document showing Bill Clinton's message to victims. Some of the typed text has been scribbled out and replaced with hand-written text.
Bill Clinton 's notes for address to the Oklahoma City bombing victims on April 23, 1995
A firefighter is holding a dying toddler in his arms, and he is looking down at her. The toddler has blood on her head, arms, and legs, and is wearing white socks.
Charles Porter's photograph of firefighter Chris Fields holding the dying infant Baylee Almon won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1996. [ 152 ]
A woman, at the left of the image, is reading a black spray paint message written on a brick wall. The message reads "Team 5 4–19–95 We Search For the truth We Seek Justice. The Courts Require it. The Victims Cry for it. And God Demands it!"
Rescue Team 5 remembers the victims who died in the bombing.
Two images are stitched together showing the site of where the building stood prior to its demolition. A crowd of people are visible in front of the chain link fence blocking entrance to the site. Large piles of dirt can be seen on the site as well as damage to nearby buildings.
The site of the building after it was demolished, three months after the bombing