The Oklahoma City Bombing Explained

Hey there, I'm Mr. Beat. When I was in middle school, the deadliest terrorist attack in American history up to that point happened about three hours from where I lived. I freaked out. I had a hard time understanding how such an evil act could happen. How could these men so coldly murder innocent people, including 19 children? Well, I'm assuming you already know that I'm not talking about 9-11 because you saw the title of the video. This video is about an event that happened a few years before 9-11, 4-19, or the Oklahoma City Bombing. Scary that somebody could do that to other human beings. That's kind of, that's what scares me. When you have rumors going around, rumors are like with anything, you know, you have to weed it out and find which is which and you know what's what and that's what the investigative team has done so far and they're they're doing real good a job of trying to find out if that's the truth or if it's you know an actual someone here close to town which I doubt. I'm a real strong proponent I guess of instant capital punishment so I don't think they should even go to trial. I think they ought to be hung. That's my opinion. It's a lot of women and children that got killed. The morning of April 19, 1995, at first seemed just like an ordinary Wednesday morning at the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Most of the 646 folks who worked in the building worked for the Social Security Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Veterans Affairs, Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret Service, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and had all been at work for about an hour or so. The building also housed America's Kids, a daycare center. And then, at exactly 9.02 a.m., a bomb explodes. The explosion was equal to more than 5,000 pounds of TNT and can be heard and felt up to 55 miles away. Immediately, more than a third of the building was gone. When the bomb went off, a 30-foot-wide, 8-foot-deep crater. The blast destroyed at least 324 buildings and 86 cars within a four-block radius. It shattered the glass of at least 258 nearby buildings. Some died immediately. Others died later, but the death toll eventually reached 168. Most of them died from the collapse of the building, not the bomb blast itself. The victims included three pregnant women and 19 children, one as young as 3 months. More than 680 people in the building and surrounding area were injured. Hundreds who lived in the area were also now homeless. As first responders began the rescue efforts, the entire area seemed like a war zone. Eventually, more than 12,000 people helped with relief and rescue operations. Rebecca Anderson, a 37-year-old nurse, died after being hit on the head by debris trying to rescue victims. 26 others were injured during rescue attempts. From April 24 to 29, rescuers attempted to recover additional bodies by moving rubble. By May 5, all but the bodies of three of the victims had been recovered, and rescue operations ended. Demolition workers took down the rest of the building on May 23. In the days following the bombing, federal agents carried out one of the largest investigations in American history. They had thousands of leads. At first, they assumed a group of people had conspired to carry out the attack. Many Americans assumed it was Middle Eastern terrorists, like the ones who carried out the World Trade Center bombing two years prior. However, one lead proved to be the best lead. You see, they had found out that whoever placed the 5,000 pounds of homemade explosives had left it in a Ryder rental truck, lighting a two-minute fuse, and parking that rental truck in a drop-off zone near the building's daycare center. The suspect then had left in a getaway vehicle, dropping off the keys to the truck a few blocks away. Just the day after the bombing, investigators found a rear axle of that Ryder rental truck, and traced the vehicle identification number to a body shop-slash-truck rental place in Junction City, Kansas. Employees there helped the FBI come up with a composite drawing of the dude who rented the van. A local hotel owner supplied the name, Tim McVeigh. He had accidentally written it down on the registration there. As it turns out, a state trooper had already arrested Timothy McVeigh just 90 minutes after the bomb went off. McVeigh was driving north of Oklahoma City on Interstate 35 near the town of Perry, Oklahoma, and the trooper pulled him over for driving without a license plate and then arrested him for having a concealed weapon. On April 21, federal agents took him into custody. After getting a warrant, federal agents searched the house of McVeigh's father, Bill. Based on new evidence there and the fact that others in Junction City had described others with McVeigh, they began looking into a dude named Terry Nichols and his brother James. After digging deeper, agents found out that Terry and McVeigh were good friends going back to their days in the Army together. Both had strong anti-government and racist views, and both were into survivalism and guns. Agents did find lots of incriminating evidence at Terry Nichols' home, and he turned himself in. A few days later, agents also arrested his brother James, but they released him 32 days later due to lack of evidence. All of the forensic evidence quickly linked the Oklahoma City bombing to Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and another dude named Michael Fortier. Fortier's wife, Lori, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, were also linked, but ultimately were granted immunity, meaning they were cleared of getting in trouble. Fortier ended up becoming a star witness and took a plea deal to give up dirt on McVeigh and Nichols, and therefore ended up getting far less punishment. Later on, McVeigh was charged on 11 federal counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and multiple counts of first degree murder. Nichols was charged with conspiracy to multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter. Both were convicted. McVeigh got the death penalty. Nichols got 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. For his cooperation, Fortier got 12 years in prison. He and his family have been in the United States Federal Witness Protection Program since his early release in 2006. Eventually, McVeigh spilled the beans, explaining exactly why he did it. He wanted to inspire a revolution against the federal government and justified it as defense against a tyrannical government. It was also retaliation for the Ruby Ridge Siege and Waco Siege. In fact, he chose that date, April 19, because it was the two year anniversary of the Waco Siege, and he chose the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building because the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had offices there and were involved with both Ruby Ridge and Waco. McVeigh died by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Terry Nichols is still alive in prison. The FBI's investigation of the bombing did still leave some questions. For example, we still don't know the exact origin of the idea to blow up the Murrah Building. There are also more than likely others who were involved with the conspiracy. However, it seems clear that Timothy McVeigh orchestrated and carried out the whole thing, and all others were just accomplices. And while he wanted to start a revolution, all he did was unite the whole country against him. He didn't attack the federal government. He attacked innocent Americans who just so happened to have federal government jobs. The Oklahoma City bombing remains the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States. It served as a wakeup call that no part of the country was safe from terrorism, that terrorists could easily assemble bombs and do lots of destruction, and that the most dangerous terrorists can sometimes be our neighbors. Thank you to my Patreon supporter David Kosman for suggesting this video topic, and I took his suggestion because he donates on Patreon. David is an Oklahoma native who had a teacher whose wife was just a few buildings away from the explosion on that fateful day. If you ever get the opportunity to go to the National Memorial in Oklahoma City, I strongly recommend it. I was there a few years ago. It does such a great job honoring the victims, survivors, and rescuers of the Oklahoma City bombing. What other recent events in American history should I cover? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for choosing to spend some of your quarantine time watching this video.