Oklahoma City bombing

The Oklahoma City bombing took place on April 19, 1995, when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was destroyed by a powerful explosion set off by Timothy McVeigh, a U.S. citizen with a virulent hatred of the American government. It produced the heaviest casualty count of any terrorist incident in the U.S. before the 9/11 attacks, killing 168 people, injuring hundreds, destroying a substantial office building, and damaging other nearby structures.

Federal agencies in the building included the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Secret Service; the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; the Social Security Administration; U.S. Army and U.S Marine Corps recruiting offices, the Veterans Administration; the General Accounting Office; the [[U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]]; the U.S. Department of Defense; the U.S. Customs Service; the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the U.S. Department of Transportation and, the U.S. General Services Administration. McVeigh's greatest anger seemed to be against ATF, which he thought was headquartered there. There was also a private childrens' day-care center there.

Operational technique

As determined in the trial, McVeigh alone placed the truck containing the bomb, although he had one collaborator, Terry Nichols, in fabricating it. The device was improvised, using approximately 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate-fuel oil explosive with additional components.

Emergency response

Oklahoma City's fire department was the lead agency, and immediately invoked the Incident Command System. A Forward Command Post was placed inside the interior loading dock of the Murrah Building. Adding to the complexity of operations was that the Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately designated it a crime site. The Joint Command function was placed at the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), 3 miles from the incident. Emergency management personnel had been in a nearby meeting, so the SEOC was operating at 9:25 AM, after receiving an initial notification at 9:04.

The explosion taxed local resources to their limits, at the edge of a mass casualty incident. Some victims almost certainly survived the explosion but died before they could be extricated; certain areas were too unstable for an immediate approach by rescuers. Some trapped victims needed to have limbs amputated, with little or no anesthesia, to be removed from wreckage.

Perpetrators and response

McVeigh was arrested, for a traffic violation, approximately 90 minutes after the blast. The reasons for the attack were never totally clear, although McVeigh and Nichols appear to have had revenge for the Federal raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. They were influenced by a militant groups generally characterized as of the extreme right; the incident has some parallels to events in a novel, The Turner Diaries.

A defense motion for a potentially less biased venue was accepted, and the trial moved to Denver, Colorado. Jury selection began in March 1997. Janet Napolitano, now the U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security and then a United States Attorney, directed the Federal prosecution, which sentenced McVeigh to death; he was later executed.

Conspiracy theories

As with many major national incidents, a number of conspiracy theories have come into existence regarding the attack and the FBI investiagion that followed. These include accusations of a link between McVeigh and the Elohim City white nationalist compound, and accusations that the federal authorities knew of McVeigh's plans and pulled out FBI and ATF agents, leaving only civilian workers.

Steven Emerson reported, early after the blast, that it had the signature of Islamist terrorism; he was not the only person making such allegations.