THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

The Oklahoma City Bombing

The Oklahoma City Bombing

Motivation behind the attack

Timothy McVeigh was convicted and executed for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The “deadliest terrorist attack in United States history” (Kittrie & Wedlock, 1998, p. 776) to that time killed 168 people, including children in the day care center that was located directly above the blast. McVeigh's motivations appear to have been rooted in an antigovernment ideology fueled by the government's killing of Randy Weaver's wife and child at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and 76 Branch Davidians (including children) at Waco, Texas—an event occurring exactly two years prior to the Oklahoma City bombing.

In a letter from death row, McVeigh explained, “The bombing was a retaliatory strike: a counterattack, for the cumulative raids (and subsequent violence and damage) that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Waco).” (Deakin, 1988)

How McVeigh carried out the attack

On April 19, 1995, at 9:02 A.M., a rented Ryder truck carrying a 4,000-pound fertilizer bomb exploded in front of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. The bomb destroyed over one-third of the nine-story building, including a day care center located on the second floor. In all, 168 people, including 19 children and eight federal employees, perished; more than 500 were injured. Two days later, Timothy James McVeigh, then 26, was charged in connection with the bombing.

Rescue workers and investigators continued to comb the rubble for nearly a month. On May 23, 1995, 150 pounds of dynamite were used to implode what remained of the Murrah building. By then, preliminary hearings had already begun. In late August 1995, a federal grand jury indicted McVeigh and Nichols on murder and conspiracy charges. Two years would pass before either would go to trial.

While ...