The Oklahoma City Bombing was at the time regarded as the worst terrorist attack to have occurred in the US. The bombing took place on April 19, 1995, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City and killed 168 people. The mastermind of this delicate operation was Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols.
McVeigh and Nichols met in the US army in 1988 and immediately became good friends despite Nichols being decades older than McVeigh. They both shared an interest in survivalism and were furious at the FBI’s handling of the situations at Ruby Ridge and Waco Siege. During the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident, a family was convicted of selling illegal firearms and refused to leave their property when prompted to by the FBI. This resulted in the FBI besieging the family's house, and one of the FBI’s snipers killing the mother and son of the family. In 1993, the Waco Siege occurred when a government raid on a compound led to a 51-day siege against the Branch Davidians and federal agents. The siege ended with 75 people dead, 25 of them being children. The FBI’s failure to handle these situations infuriated McVeigh and Nichols and was their motive for bombing Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
McViegh and Nichols picked Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building because it had multiple federal agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the FBI, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Also, the building was relatively far away from other buildings which were important as they wanted to minimize non-government civilian casualties.
To build their bomb, McViegh and Nichols had bought or stole several ingredients including 9 Kinestiks, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and nitromethane. They raised suspicion when they were buying the nitromethane at a racing event. The first supplier that McViegh and Nichols found it strange that someone needed to buy 55 U.S gallon drums of nitromethane and denied their request. McViegh and Nichols eventually got their nitromethane from another supplier, but their first supplier decided to contact the FBI about their actions.
When their bomb was built, McVeigh and Nichols planned to destroy the building at 9:00 am on April 19, 1995. They planted a Ryder rental truck next to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and at 9:02 am, the truck exploded. The explosion caused one-third of the building to be destroyed and nearly 652 million dollars worth of damage.
McVeigh and Nichols would be caught by the police for not having a license plate on their car. The police also found firearms and remnants of the materials they used to make the explosives and sent them to jail. On June 2, 1997, Mcviegh was convicted to the death penalty and was executed on June 11, 2001. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison.
This was a very interesting blog post. I did some extra research and found that both McVeigh and Nichols, the two bombers in the attack, were both former army members. McVeigh was the first person to be put to death since 1963.
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Before reading your blog post, I had no idea that the Oklahoma City Bombing took place, and after reading it, I don't know why I hadn't heard of it before. It's unfortunate how common terrorist attacks have become today- from 9/11 to the Texas Walmart shooting that took place last year. When further researching the Oklahoma City Bombing, I found that McVeigh was considering using an insanity defense in order to escape the death penalty. Ultimately, he decided against it because he feared he wouldn't have enough evidence to pull it off.
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