It was 9:00 in the morning on a bright Wednesday morning. People were beginning the day just like they did every day. Parents had dropped their children off at the daycare located on the second floor of the Federal Building and the workers in the building were settling in for a day of work. At 9:02 central time all semblance of normalcy was destroyed forever and Oklahoma City, previously thought of by the locals as the city where nothing much ever happened (Pressley, A1), became the site of the worst terrorist attack committed on United States ground in history (Indianapolis Star, 1).
It held that title until 2001 when another bright sunny morning was shattered by tragedy.
A Ryder moving van had been strategically parked on the street along in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. This truck was filled with an explosive combination of chemicals. The chemicals consisted of a fertilizer called ammonium nitrate and a racing fuel called nitromethane (Indianapolis Star, 1). No one paid any special attention to the truck, because vehicles were parked in front of the building every day, and until that day such an event had never occurred in the United States. Everyone in the city went about business as usual, unaware of the plot that had been planned for months and was set into place that morning.
The Oklahoma City Federal Building was a nine story building with many government offices located in it. In addition to the offices, a daycare with an enrollment of approximately forty children was located on the second floor of the building.
Many of these children were the children of Federal employees who worked in the building. The workers had previously been reassured by the knowledge that their children were in the same building they were in during the day. Unfortunately where the daycare was located in the building, put it in one of the most damaged areas of the building.
When the explosive filled truck exploded, the entire north side of the building collapsed. Witnesses and rescue workers stated that the floors of the building fell on top of each other in a pancake like pattern (Pressley, A1). The blast was so violent that vibrations from it were felt up to thirty miles away (Pressley, A1). Cars parked in the street burned for more than an hour after the blast and caused smelly black smoke to pollute the air. The explosion broke windows and knocked people to the floor several blocks from the federal building, created a two story pile of debris as in front of the building and across to a parking lot, and an eight foot deep by twenty foot in diameter crater was created at the bomb location (Pressley, A1).
Within minutes of the explosion stunned injured people began to emerge from the severely damaged building and equally stunned rescue workers were called to the scene to provide on site treatment and assistance to the disaster survivors. Initially it was nearly impossible to get even an idea of how many people had lost their lives in the disaster. The rescuer’s first mission was to find the survivors and get help for them. They dug carefully through the rubble to find those who might still have been alive.
While searching for survivors, they had to pass up many who workers could tell were already lost. They knew they would come back for them later. Workers were made aware that approximately five hundred and fifty people were employed in the building and forty-one children were enrolled in the daycare with an estimated thirty present that day (Pressley, A1). There was no way for workers to estimate how many visitors were in the building at the time of the explosion. They only knew it had happened at the time of day when the highest number of visitors was usually present in the building.
Although all of the people inside the building were important to the workers and those watching helplessly from the rest of the world, the thirty children who were known to be in the daycare became one of the biggest concerns for the workers. The daycare center was in one of the hardest hit areas of the building, because it was located directly above the bomb blast and below seven floors of rubble (Ottley, 1). The devastation to the daycare was evidenced by the broken toys scattered all over the area. After several hours of searching only two children had been removed from the destruction alive, and several were still missing. One of the most famous pictures that came out of the bombing was that of o fireman carrying a young child, who was barely clinging to life and would later die from her injuries.
By evening a center was set up in a local church for survivors and family members to go in hopes of finding each other. As of midnight that night, over a hundred people remained in the center waiting for some kind of word on their loved ones. Employers tried to help families by attempting to account for all of their employees and rescue workers encouraged survivors to call in to let rescuers know who was still unaccounted for.
Although the initial focus was on the horrific tragedy and saving everyone who could be saved, the police needed to begin working on who might have been responsible for such an incredible attack on the American people. What they did not discover for two days was that just ninety minutes after the attack the bomber was taken into police custody after he was stooped due to a missing license plate (Indianapolis, 1).
During the traffic stop it was discovered that Timothy McVeigh, who would later be convicted for the crime was carrying a gun (Ottley, 1). He was held in police custody for two days for the gun possession. Just before he was to be released, it was discovered that he matched the composite of one of the suspects in the bombing. He was soon portrayed as a killer before a trial was even set. One magazine placed his picture over the picture of the fireman holding the limp infant in his arms (Hoffman,).
When an investigation into Timothy McVeigh was conducted, it was discovered that he had been in the army and had since been discharged. He had a history of being an extreme personality and using weapons. Evidence emerged that he and a friend from the army named Terry Nichols had conspired to carry out the devastation at the federal building for several months prior to the actual bombing.
McVeigh’s actions were traced as far back as September of the following year. A timeline was developed for where he found and purchased the chemicals to make the bomb, where and when he rented the truck to plant the bomb in and when and where he rented the get away car (Indianapolis, 1). He placed the car near the scene the day he rented the truck. His friend helped him plan and carry out the attack by providing him assistance in transportation.
Terry Nichols was tried and found guilty of conspiracy to commit the crimes. He was later sentenced to life in prison for his part of the attack. Timothy McVeigh was tried for the murders of all of the innocent people who lost their lives that day. He was convicted and sentenced to death. He went through an appeal process and still had at least one appeal left. He finally asked for the appeals to end and accepted the sentence (Indianapolis, 1). He was executed on June 11, 2001 (Indianapolis, 1) with any of the victims or their families who chose to present to watch the final justice for the worst mass murder in American History.
In the days and even months following the Oklahoma City bombing, there were threats of other bombs and several other Federal buildings in towns around the country were closed temporarily. There was talk of a governmental cover-up, because Timothy McVeigh was not proven guilty and some said there was evidence of more than one bomb. Because it happened on the second anniversary of the disaster in Waco, Texas, some people believed it was a way to retaliate against the government for the results of that incident.
No one will ever know for sure why Timothy McVeigh chose to attack that building in that city at that time, but everyone knows it was the beginning of the loss of innocence in a country that had previously felt relatively protected inside its borders. The final result of the worst terrorist attack at that time was the death of one hundred and sixty eight innocent people who were only guilty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Nineteen of those people were the most innocent of all. They were children who only moments before had been playing happily without any concerns other that when Mommy was coming back.
This disaster proved that no one anywhere is completely safe from a terrorist attack and the attack on the World trade center a few years later only reaffirmed that. Both attacks were senseless attempts to make a point that proved to only cause the death of innocent people, but it defeated the purpose of tearing the country apart. Americans have proven in the face of these tragedies that they can come together and help others, thus making the country stronger instead of weaker.
Works Cited:
Hoffman, David. “The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror”. (1998).
The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, by David Hoffman
Ottley, Ted “The Oklahoma City Bombing: A Bad Day Dawning” (2007)
Time Warner Books The Timothy McVeigh Story: The Oklahoma Bomber – The Crime library
Pressley, Sue Anne. “Bomb Kills Dozens in Oklahoma Federal Building”
(20 April, 1995). Washington Post. WashingtonPost.com: Oklahoma City Bombing Trial Report
“The Oklahoma City Bombing” (9, August 2004) The Indianapolis Star
The Oklahoma City Bombing.
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