At 9.02 a.m. explosions tore through the Alfred P Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City. A Noble Lie: Oklahoma City 1995, Youtube 2011
The first questions were directed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms which had launched the raid on the Branch Dividians. The Oklahoma City office for the ATF was located in the Murrah building and was the supposed target of the attack yet no agents were killed or seriously wounded. Was the ATF office empty that morning? ibid.
Another ATF agent admitted under oath that one suspect Andy Strassmier was reported to make ‘threats to blow up federal buildings’. ibid.
‘I haven’t stopped asking questions ‘cause I know that we haven’t been told the truth … Not one person saw him [Timothy McVeigh] by himself.’ ibid. Jannie Coverdale, victim’s family member
All these reports indicate that more than one Ryder truck was involved in the bombing and more people than the government is letting on. ibid.
The FBI announced that they had withheld thousands of pages of documents that could have influenced his trial which led to a month-long stay of execution. ibid.
The problems with the failed columns at the Murrah building is that at that distance the air blast from an ANFO bomb would have been ten times less powerful than what was needed to dissolve the concrete and cut the rebar. ibid.
The Murrah federal building was not destroyed by one sole truck bomb … detonation of explosives placed at four key junctures. ibid.
The Oklahoma highway patrol reported that another explosive device was found; the Oklahoma City fire department confirmed that. ibid.
Always the good soldier McVeigh revealed only one name in his chain of command - Larry Potts, assistant director of the FBI and the lead agent on the Ruby Ridge catastrophe in 1992. ibid.
‘A sting operation gone wrong.’ ibid.
Northern Idaho: it’s a remote place, it’s a predominantly white place and it’s the kind of place where everyone minds their business. In the 1980s a lot of extremist groups found sanctuary there. One of those groups was the Aryan Nations. Oklahoma City, PBS 2017
One visitor to the Aryan Nations compound was an Army veteran named Randy Weaver … On the day of the [Ruby Ridge] shooting the marshals had a six man team … 14-year-old Sammy Weaver’s dead, the dog’s dead and so is federal marshal William Degan killed on the property of a White Separatist. ibid.
‘They start screaming at us, Get out of this building; we have just found another device.’ ibid. rozzer
‘The Branch Davidians were not White Supremacists. But now a broader section of the far right sees itself at Waco and says, We’re being suppressed for our beliefs and our guns.’ ibid.
One of those drawn to Waco was a 24-year-old Army veteran named Timothy McVeigh. ibid.
McVeigh recruited two Army buddies to help him build a bomb. ibid.
It was an act of cowardice and it was evil. Days that Shaped America s1e3: Oklahoma City Bombing, Clinton, History 2018
It felt like my head was exploding, everything went black, and I felt this powerful rushing sensation like I was falling – and I was falling, I was falling three floors. ibid. Amy Downs, survivor
An attack on innocent children and defenceless citizens. ibid. Clinton
Oklahoma City, April 19th 1995 9:02 a.m.: ‘Holy Cow! About a third of the building has been blown away!’ In Defence Of: Timothy McVeigh, news report, Sky Crime 2019
Over 500 people were already in the building and 35-40 children were in a day-care centre on the second floor. ibid.
It looks like part of the building has been blown away. An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th, helicopter news report, Sky Documentaries 2024
It felt to me as if my skin was burning off. ibid. Nancy Shaw
In the heart of Oklahoma, in the heart of the capital city, a terrible bomb has exploded … ibid. TV news
The bomb killed 168 people, including 19 children. ibid. caption
I didn’t want to believe an American could do this. ibid. man
So McVeigh and Nichols represent the crisis in American agriculture and the crisis in American industry. ibid.
He [McVeigh] comes back home [from Iraq] and has a nervous breakdown. ibid.
Waco: The turning point for McVeigh. He said that at that moment he decided he was going to commit an act of terrorism. ibid.
The idea of blowing up the Murrah building was hatched ten years earlier among members of The Covenant, Sword & Arm of the Lord. ibid.
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and Timothy McVeigh is a great man. ibid. Richard Butler, cited investigating mother
An ordinary government building: nine floors of glass and steel reinforced concrete, build to code, built to last. The one morning a crude bomb causes destruction on an unimaginable scale. In nine seconds the building disintegrates. 168 people will die as a result of the explosion. Seconds from Disaster s1e3: The Bomb in Oklahoma City
Even the date he has chosen deliberately. Exactly two years before in Waco, Texas, federal agents storm a militia compound … He blames the US government for their deaths and vows revenge. His name is Timothy McVeigh. ibid.
A motel owner recognises the identikit picture as a man who recently stayed there driving a Ryder truck. ibid.
He was an ordinary American with an all-American childhood of little league baseball, Santa Claus, and Cowboys and Indians … One bright spring morning in April 1995 … It was the worst peacetime atrocity on United States’ soil at that time, and it shocked America and most of the world. Zero Hour s2e2: Oklahoma Bombing: One of America’s Own
For he was no Islamist bomber from a foreign land but one of America’s own. ibid.
‘The Turner Diaries is just the kind of book that he was looking for, because it was a book about gun rights, it was a book about hatred for the US government, and it was also a book about a terrorist act.’ ibid. comment
His victims will include men like him. ibid.