Oklahoma City bombing

Oklahoma City bombing

The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed at least 168 people, including many children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed more than one third of the building. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997. Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the U. S. federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 2004.

About Oklahoma City bombing in brief

Summary Oklahoma City bombingThe Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed at least 168 people, including many children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed more than one third of the building. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997. Timothy McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the U. S. federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 2004. The official FBI investigation involved 28,000 interviews and collecting 3.5 short tons of evidence and nearly one billion pieces of information. The U. s. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which tightened the standards for habeas corpus in the United States. It also passed legislation to increase the protection around federal buildings to deter future terrorist attacks. In 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing. Remembrance services are held every year at the time of the explosion. The chief conspirators, Timothy Mc Veigh and Terry Nichols, met in 1988 at Fort Benning during basic training for the U  S. Army. Mc veigh and Nichols were radicalized by white supremacist and antigovernment propaganda. They expressed anger at the federal government’s handling of the 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation standoff with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, as well as the Waco siege, a 1993 51-day standoff between the FBI and Branch Davidian members that began with a botched Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempt to execute a search warrant.

The three shared interests in survivalism. Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices. Michael Fortier was later sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the United US government, and Lori received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony. In March 1993, Mcveigh decided to bomb a federal building as a response to what he believed to be US government efforts to restrict the rights of private citizens, in particular those under the Second Amendment. He timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the fire that ended the siege in Waco, Texas. He later said that he sometimes regretted not carrying out an assassination campaign; FBI sniper Loni Horiuchi, who had become infamous because of his participation in the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges, said he had contemplated assassinating Attorney General Janet Reno instead of attacking a building. McVeight was arrested 90 minutes after the explosion for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated USD 652 million worth of damage.