30 Years After the OKC Bombing

 

30 Years After the OKC Bombing

Time flies. Today is the 30th year anniversary of the evil Oklahoma City bombing that occurred at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. I remember that time just like yesterday. During that time, I was in the 6th grade. My 6th-grade teacher showed the news coverage of the terrorist attack in the morning. It was a melancholy day indeed. This attack represented a new era of the white racist and far-right movements in American society. The Confederacy lost the American Civil War in 1865. Yet, the views of the Confederacy, neo-Confederates, and far-right extremists persisted. These neo-Confederate enemies promoted Jim Crow apartheid, lynching of black people, and other laws that suppressed the rights of the people in general. Many far-right extremists wanted to go beyond legitimate critique of governmental policies to advocate overthrow of the government in violating the rights of minorities (and scapegoating minority groups like us black people, Jewish people, Muslims, Hispanic people, etc.). The murderers involved in the attack are Timothy McVeigh (who was a racist who loved to read the bigoted Turner Diaries) and Terry Nichols. Both males were military members once upon a time. Timothy McVeigh was in the Persian Gulf War (from 1990-1991). McVeigh was from Pennsylvania, and he expressed outrage at the Ruby Ridge incident and the government response to Waco back in 1993. I was in the fourth grade when the Waco siege took place.

So, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used bomb making materials to attack the American government. These cowards murdered innocent men, women, children, and babies. In 1995, I saw babies covered in blood by these 2 monsters. One of these monsters died by the death penalty in 2001. McVeigh expressed no remorse for what he did. He was sick. Terry Nichols is in prison for life, as he should. 168 people were murdered by the bombing, and 684 people were injured. The attack allowed Congress, with President Bill Clinton in the White House during that time, to pass anti-terrorism legislation in a prelude to the Patriot Act. We have civil liberty questions about many of these anti-terrorism laws, but one thing is true. We condemn terrorism and the murder of innocent human life. No matter what a person is going through, there is absolutely no excuse for a person to murder an innocent human life. It is important to recognize the first responders who saved hundreds of lives during that horrendous ordeal. Abigail Ogle became emotional during the reading of poem to honor the 19 children whose lives were lost. Many people spoke on April 19, 2025 to commemorate the lives of the victims of the attack like President Bill Clinton, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, former Governor Frank Keating, U.S. Senator James Lankford, U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice, Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, and other dignitaries. With a tyrant (who is Donald Trump) in office now who wants to cut legitimate social services, who deports people without due process of law, who claims that the 2020 election was stolen (which is a lie), and who desires unconditional support, we are even more vigilant to stand up for freedom and justice for all.

The Prelude

Before the OKC Bombing took place, America was in a unique space. After the Vietnam War, the Austrian economists advocated the push for more laissez-faire capitalism. Many people exploited their economic experiences to scapegoat black people, Jewish people, and other minorities in a bigoted, illogical fashion. The cause of the economic dislocation is not caused by black people, women, immigrants, etc. but by the one percent who benefit from massive deindustrialization, massive wealth transfer to the super wealthy, and other social complications. There has been a massive polarization of wealth and poverty in America. Also, there has been massive racism, sexism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism in America for centuries. The Klan, the Neo-Nazis, and other white nationalist groups have differences, but they desire one goal which is the domination of the Earth by white racist people. Timothy McVeigh made a voluntary decision to embrace racist and anti-Semitic views. Now, Timothy McVeigh was raised in Upstate rural New York state near the Rust Belt. McVeigh turned to racism as an excuse to justify his insecurities and his feelings of inadequacy. McVeigh's far right views haven't been in a vacuum. For decades, corporate media, fascist propagandists, and other extremists have shown television, radio, film, and social media to promote far-right views. The massive glorification of militarism, the sexism, the attacks on progressive views, and the attack on diversity have had an impact to convince some people to gravitate towards hatred of human beings with certain differences. Timothy McVeigh was a Persian Gulf War veteran who had a low wage job. He fought in Iraq and recited for television cameras the words of "Blood makes the grass grow. Kill! Kill! Kill!." He was part of the militia movement too. Not all militia members are racists, but many of them were. The Republicans had Newt Gingrich who promoted austerity measures. Many Republicans had active ties to militia groups and far right extremists back in the 1990s and today. The living standards being low, the American reality of America being the most unequal of all the industrialized countries on Earth, and big business strips the dreams of many Americans will cause some to embrace the evil of terrorism, unfortunately. McVeigh was born in April 1968 in Lockport, New York, which was near Buffalo. It had massive economic issues. He embraced far-right propaganda and was obsessed with survivalism. He did it in 1983 when he was 14 years old. 

McVeigh grew up to be a racist and a sexist who blamed working mothers and two-income families for the problems in America which isn't true. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a huge backlash against the social reforms from the Great Society and the War on Poverty of the early to mid-1960s. He met Terry Nicholas in the U.S. Army. Nichols is just as guilty as McVeigh, as he was a co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing. Tim McVeigh was gung-ho about war and talked about the UN-dominated world government views. He knew about the events at Ruby Ridge in August 1992 (when an FBI sniper shot and killed the wife of a white racist in Idaho) and Waco back in 1993. McVeigh was a far-right extremist who hated socialism. 

 

The Planning

Later, by the Fall of 1994, Timothy McVeigh decided to blow up a federal building. He has been inspired by the racist Turner Diaries Book. Timothy McVeigh believed in extreme individualism and misanthropic views. He didn't want humanity liberated from economic and social oppression. He hated the federal government because many in the federal government protected the rights of immigrants, women, minorities, and other people. Timothy McVeigh telephoned Elohim City two weeks before the bombing of the Murrah Building took place. Elohim City is a center where white racists and far right extremists lived at. Timothy McVeigh told Fortier about his plans to blow up a federal building, and Fortier declined to participate. Fortier told his wife about the plans. McVeigh and Nichols constructed an ANFO explosive device at a lakeside campground near McVeigh's old Army post. They mounted the bomb on the back of a rented Ryder truck. The bomb consisted of about 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane. On April 19, 1995, McVeigh drove the truck to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just as its offices opened for the day. Timothy McVeigh wrote letters cursing out the ATF and government officials. He was a paranoid, evil person. He ignored the truth that many people in the government have helped people for generations. There is a distinction between corrupt people in government, and righteous, hardworking people saving lives in the government. He wanted an assassination of members of the Clinton administration over the actions in Waco and the Rudy Ridge incident. He left his friend Michael Fortier in Arizona because of Fortier's drug habits. McVeigh was a fascist who hated government and socialism. 

 

The Tragic Event

On April 19, 1995, on 9:02 am, he stopped at a place to a light a two-minute fuse. Then, a large explosion destroyed the north part of the Alfred P. Murray Federal Building. The bombing killed 168 people, including 19 children in the daycare center on the second floor, and injured 684 people. The murderer McVeigh said that he might have chosen a different location if he had known there was a daycare center on the second floor. Yet, that coward McVeigh should never have murdered innocent people in the first place. Terry Nichols said that McVeigh did know about the daycare center in the building, and they didn't care. According to the Oklahoma City Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), more than 3000 buildings in the city were damaged. More than 12,000 volunteers and rescue workers took part in the rescue, recovery, and support operations after the bombing. The Oklahoma City bombing caused an estimated $625 million worth of damage.  A rescue worker was killed by being struck on the head by falling debris after the bombing. The effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of TNT and could be heard and felt up to 55 miles (89 km) away. Seismometers at the Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, 16.1 miles (25.9 km) away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter magnitude scale. The collapse of the northern half of the building took roughly seven seconds. As the truck exploded, it first destroyed the column next to it, designated as G20, and shattered the entire glass facade of the building. The shockwave of the explosion forced the lower floors upwards, before the fourth and fifth floors collapsed onto the third floor, which housed a transfer beam that ran the length of the building and was being supported by four pillars below, as well as supporting the pillars that hold the upper floors. The added weight meant that the third floor gave way along with the transfer beam, which in turn caused the collapse of the building. 

Of the dead, 108 worked for the Federal government: Drug Enforcement Administration (5); Secret Service (6); Department of Housing and Urban Development (35); Department of Agriculture (7); Customs Office (2); Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration (11); General Services Administration (2); and the Social Security Administration (40). Eight of the federal government victims were federal law enforcement agents. Of those law enforcement agents, four were members of the U.S. Secret Service; two were members of the U.S. Customs Service; one was a member of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and one was a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Six of the victims were U.S. military personnel; two were members of the U.S. Army; two were members of the U.S. Air Force, and two were members of the U.S. Marine Corps. The victims also included 19 children, of whom 15 were in the America's Kids Day Care Center. The bodies of the 168 victims were identified at a temporary morgue set up at the scene. A team of 24 identified the victims using full-body X-rays, dental examinations, fingerprinting, blood tests, and DNA testing.

 

The Capture of the Murderers

After the evil Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI and the federal government raced to find the suspects. Many Americans were shocked that the murderers weren't of Arabic descent, because many folks back then had the racist view that terrorism was exclusively done by people of a certain race. The murderers were white men from rural and suburban America. Initially, the FBI had three hypotheses about responsibility for the bombing: international terrorists, possibly the same group that had carried out the World Trade Center bombing; a drug cartel, carrying out an act of vengeance against DEA agents in the building's DEA office; and anti-government radicals attempting to start a rebellion against the federal government. McVeigh was arrested within 90 minutes of the explosion, as he was traveling north on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, Oklahoma. Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis without a license plate and arrested him for having a concealed weapon. For his home address, McVeigh falsely claimed he resided at Terry Nichols's brother James's house in Michigan. After booking McVeigh into jail, Trooper Hanger searched his patrol car and found a business card that had been concealed by McVeigh after being handcuffed. Written on the back of the card, which was from a Wisconsin military surplus store, were the words "TNT at $5 a stick. Need more." The card was later used as evidence during McVeigh's trial.

While investigating the VIN on an axle of the truck used in the explosion and the remnants of the license plate, federal agents were able to link the truck to a specific Ryder rental agency in Junction City, Kansas. Using a sketch created with the assistance of Eldon Elliot, owner of the agency, the agents were able to implicate McVeigh in the bombing. McVeigh was also identified by Lea McGown of the Dreamland Motel, who remembered him parking a large yellow Ryder truck in the lot; McVeigh had signed in under his real name at the motel, using an address that matched the one on his forged license and the charge sheet at the Perry Police Station. Before signing his real name at the motel, McVeigh had used false names for his transactions. McGown noted, "People are so used to signing their own name that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use. That's what [McVeigh] did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him." After an April 21, 1995, court hearing on the gun charges, but before McVeigh's release, federal agents took him into custody as they continued their investigation into the bombing. Rather than talk to investigators about the bombing, McVeigh demanded an attorney. Having been tipped off by the arrival of police and helicopters that a bombing suspect was inside, a restless crowd began to gather outside the jail. McVeigh's requests for a bulletproof vest or transport by helicopter were denied, but authorities did use a helicopter to transport him from Perry to Oklahoma City.

Federal agents obtained a warrant to search the house of McVeigh's father, Bill, after which they broke down the door and wired the house and telephone with listening devices. FBI investigators used the information gained, along with the fake address McVeigh had been using, to begin their search for the Nichols brothers, Terry and James. On April 21, 1995, Terry Nichols learned that he was being hunted and turned himself in. Investigators discovered incriminating evidence at his home: ammonium nitrate and blasting caps, the electric drill used to drill out the locks at the quarry, books on bomb-making, a copy of Hunter (a 1989 novel by William Luther Pierce, the founder and chairman of the National Alliance, a white nationalist group) and a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City, on which the Murrah Building and the spot where McVeigh's getaway car was hidden were marked. After a nine-hour interrogation, Terry Nichols was held in federal custody until his trial. On April 25, 1995, James Nichols was also arrested, but he was released after 32 days due to a lack of evidence. McVeigh's sister Jennifer was accused of illegally mailing ammunition to McVeigh, but she was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against him.

A Jordanian-American man traveling from his home in Oklahoma City to visit family in Jordan on April 19, 1995, was detained and questioned by the FBI at the airport. Several Arabic-American groups criticized the FBI for racial profiling, and the subsequent media coverage for publicizing the man's name. Attorney General Reno denied claims that the federal government relied on racial profiling, while FBI director Louis J. Freeh told a press conference that the man was never a suspect and was instead treated as a "witness" to the Oklahoma City bombing, who assisted the government's investigation.

Tim VcVeigh, the murderer, showed no remorse for his evil actions. McVeigh later acknowledged the casualties, saying, "I didn't define the rules of engagement in this conflict. The rules, if not written down, are defined by the aggressor. It was brutal, no holds barred. Women and kids were killed at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You put back in [the government's] faces exactly what they're giving out." He later stated, "I wanted the government to hurt like the people of Waco and Ruby Ridge had." McVeigh was wicked. 

 

Responses

The response to save lives was massive from state local, and federal government services. Citizens did their part of save lives and help the victims of the terrorist attack too. At 9:03 a.m., the first of over 1,800 911 calls related to the bombing were received by the Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA). By that time, EMSA ambulances, police, and firefighters had heard the blast and were already headed to the scene. Nearby civilians, who had also witnessed or heard the blast, arrived to assist the victims and emergency workers. Within 23 minutes of the bombing, the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) was set up, consisting of representatives from the state departments of public safety, human services, military, health, and education. Assisting the SEOC were agencies including the National Weather Service, the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, and the American Red Cross. Immediate assistance also came from 465 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, who arrived within the hour to provide security, and from members of the Department of Civil Emergency Management. Terrance Yeakey and Jim Ramsey, from the Oklahoma City Police Department, were among the first officers to arrive at the site. 

The EMS command post was set up almost immediately following the attack and oversaw triage, treatment, transportation, and decontamination. A simple plan/objective was established: treatment and transportation of the injured was to be done as quickly as possible, supplies and personnel to handle a large number of patients was needed immediately, the dead needed to be moved to a temporary morgue until they could be transferred to the coroner's office, and measures for a long-term medical operation needed to be established. The triage center was set up near the Murrah Building and all the wounded were directed there. Two hundred and ten patients were transported from the primary triage center to nearby hospitals within the first couple of hours following the bombing.

Within the first hour, 50 people were rescued from the Murrah Federal Building. The injured were sent to every hospital in the area. The day of the bombing, 153 people were treated at St. Anthony Hospital, eight blocks from the blast, over 70 people were treated at Presbyterian Hospital, 41 people were treated at University Hospital, and 18 people were treated at Children's Hospital. Temporary silences were observed at the blast site so that sensitive listening devices capable of detecting human heartbeats could be used to locate survivors. In some cases, limbs had to be amputated without anesthetics (avoided because of the potential to induce shock) in order to free those trapped under rubble. The scene had to be periodically evacuated as the police received tips claiming that other bombs had been planted in the building. At 10:28 a.m., rescuers found what they believed to be a second bomb. Some rescue workers refused to leave until police ordered the evacuation of a four-block area around the site. The device was determined to be a three-foot (.9-m) long TOW missile used in the training of federal agents and bomb-sniffing dogs; although inert, it had been marked "live" in order to mislead arms traffickers in a planned law enforcement sting. On examination the missile was determined to be inert, and relief efforts resumed 45 minutes later. The last survivor, a 15-year-old girl found under the base of the collapsed building, was rescued at around 7 p.m. 

In the days following the blast, over 12,000 people participated in relief and rescue operations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated 11 of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, bringing in 665 rescue workers. One nurse was killed in the rescue attempt after she was hit on the head by debris, and 26 other rescuers were hospitalized because of various injuries. Twenty-four K-9 units and out-of-state dogs were brought in to search for survivors and bodies in the building debris. In an effort to recover additional bodies, 100 to 350 short tons (91 to 318 t) of rubble were removed from the site each day from April 24 to 29. Rescue and recovery efforts were concluded at 12:05 a.m. on May 5, by which time the bodies of all but three of the victims had been recovered. For safety reasons, the building was initially slated to be demolished shortly afterward. McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, filed a motion to delay the demolition until the defense team could examine the site in preparation for the trial. At 7:02 a.m. on May 23, more than a month after the bombing, the Murrah Federal building was demolished. The EMS Command Center remained active and was staffed 24 hours a day until the demolition. The final three bodies to be recovered were those of two credit union employees and a customer. For several days after the building's demolition, trucks hauled away 800 short tons (730 t) of debris a day from the site. Some of the debris was used as evidence in the conspirators' trials, incorporated into memorials, donated to local schools, or sold to raise funds for relief efforts. People in the Salvation Army, regular people, and other people donated a historic amount of humanitarian aid to help the victims of the OKC Bombing. Over 9,000 units of blood were donated, 131 were used, and the rest were stored in blood banks. People gave wheelbarrows, bottled water, helmet lights, knee pads, rain gear, and football helmets to people. The Salvation Army served over 100,000 meals and provided over 100,000 ponchos, gloves, and hard hats to rescue workers. President Bill Clinton and Governor Frank Keating worked together to declare Oklahoma a federal emergency state. He spoke to the nation in these terms, "The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was an act of cowardice, and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards." 

New Threats in Our Generation

We have new threats in our generation thirty years after the Oklahoma City bombing terrorist attack. The far-right terrorist movement in many cases have expanded since 1995. In the last 10-15 years, there has been an increase of hate crimes against black people, Jewish people, Latino people, LBGT+ people, Asian people, Muslim people, many Christian people overseas (in Nigeria, in India, in China, Burma, Iran, etc.) and other human beings unjustly. That is why we can't let our guards down because we live in the 21st century. Many of the same bigotry and prejudice that existed back in the day continue today in our time, James Bryd Jr. was a victim of a hate crime in Texas along with Matthew Shepard. That is why in 2009, the government passed The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act to expand federal hate crime authority. This was after the terror attack in America on 9/11. In 2015, a white racist terrorist murdered many people in the Charleston church shooting in 2015. The black victims just wanted to worship and celebrate their faith. There was the murderer of people in the San Bernardino attack in 2015. By 2016, social media has found many people showing hate speech and bigotry. The murderer Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 53 people at the LGBT+ Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Mateen claimed the attack in the name of ISIS, but there was no links between ISIS and him. In 2017, white Neo-Nazis and other racists promoted anti-Semitism and racists in Charlottesville in my state of Virginia. Many of them showed a Nazi salute, many of them marched in the streets at night carrying torches saying anti-Semitic rhetoric, and one far right racist terrorist killed a woman via a car. Another black man was assaulted by the terrorist mob. In 2018, many immigrant children were dehumanized and oppressed by the Trump administration. Many children were separated from their migrant parents. There was the Pittsburgh synagogue terrorist shooting against Jewish people being the deadliest attack on Jewish people in U.S. history. The attack happened at the Tree of Life synagogue. A white racist killed Hispanic people at El Paso, Texas in 2019. We all know about the January 6th, 2021 terrorist insurrection attack against the U.S. government when Neo-Nazis, racists, and far right extremists harmed police, yelled racist slurs, destroyed property, threatened to hang former Vice President Mike Pence, and nearly harmed Congressional leaders (who just wanted to confirm Joe Biden as the victor of the 2020 Presidential election. Trump pardoned these terrorists in a disgraceful fashion. Neo-Nazis and Confederate flags were flown in the U.S Capitol for the first time in American history). There was another racist attack on black people at a Buffalo grocery store in May of 2022. Recently, there has been attacks on Jewish people in 2025 in Boulder, Colorado. 

Vigilance

Vigilance against tyranny is always important. We live in a totally different world than thirty years ago from the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing. Back in 1995, I was in middle school. I was a preteen then being 12 years old listening to Monica, Montel Jordan, Brandy, watching the Box music channel, watching the popularity of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. grow, and listening to other musicians. I used the Internet back then, but the Internet wasn't as widespread as it is now. Trump has deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles against the wishes of California's leaders, because California's leaders say that this situation doesn't merit this response. The National Guard forces now are guarding federal locations in Los Angeles. The mayor of Los Angeles said that peaceful protest will always be protected. These protests exist because of the excessive response of some ICE members, who in many cases, detained people without due process of law, even U.S. citizens. This has caused a climate of fear and family pain. This has nothing to do with the rule of law as the Trump administration has defied the rule of law from the Trump team defying a Supreme Court decision, Trump desiring to abolish birthright citizenship as found in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, etc. Homan has threatened to arrest Congressional leaders if they "cross that line." Also, the Trump administration is promoting a travel ban that will affect millions of innocent people with no ties to terrorism. Trump has allowed DOGE to run wild to fire innocent federal workers without just cause and cut funding from legitimate public programs that have worked to help human beings from USAID to Job Corps. This Trump MAGA movement is a whole lot worse than the Reagan Revolution (we know how vicious that movement was to vulnerable populations too). A large percentage of Americans support MAGA, and the notorious evil of the spread of xenophobia represents the necessity to not coddle extremists. It's not a time to be centrists. It's time to be bold, revolutionary, and honest to speak truth to power even if the majority of people are with evil. We have the right to disagree the policies of the tyrant Donald Trump. That is the truth that we must accept.

By Timothy