On April 19, 1995 at exactly 9:02 a.m, a 5,000-pound bomb that was hidden inside a Ryder truck exploded right outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion caused massive destruction killing 168 people (19 of those people being children). The two masterminds behind the Oklahoma City Bombing were by the names of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. On April 19, 1993, the standoff between the FBI and the Branch Davidian cult at the Davidian compound in Waco, Texas ended in a tragedy. The entire compound had combusted into flames and took the lives of 75 people including children. With the death toll being extremely high from the explosion, many people were angry and decided to blame the U.S Government for causing such disaster. Timothy McVeigh was one of those …show more content…
On September 1994, McVeigh purchased large amounts of fertilizer and then stored it in a rented shed in Herington, Kansas. The ammonium nitrate that they had purchased was the main component for the bomb to be destructive. On April 17, 1995, McVeigh rented a Ryder truck and then McVeigh and Nichols loaded the Ryder truck with 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. On the morning of April 19th, McVeigh drove the Ryder truck to the Murrah Federal Building, lit the bomb's fuse, parked in front of the building, left the keys inside the truck and locked the door, he then began to walk across the parking lot to an alley and then started to go for a jog. The bomb was destructive and cost the lives of thousands of people and the destruction of a building. After the explosion of the bomb and after weeks of looking through the remaining debris, 168 people were killed in the explosion, including 19 children. One nurse was also found dead during the rescue operation as
The Oklahoma City Bombing was a domestic terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 19, 1995. It was lead by Timothy McVeigh, an Army veteran of the Persian Gulf War. The explosive was a homemade bomb which was built by McVeigh and the help of Terry Nichols; the bomb consisted of a deadly cocktail and was put inside a rented Ryder truck in front of the Murrah Federal Building . McVeigh then proceeded out of the truck and headed towards his getaway car a few blocks away. He then started the detonation of the timed bomb at exactly 9:02 A.M. then the bomb exploded. To the people of Oklahoma it was a traumatizing moment for all, many lost families, dozens of cars were incinerated and more than 300 buildings were destroyed and caused about $652 million worth of damages. The “OKBOMB” affected hundreds of people; it killed “168 people -- 19 of them children -- and injured more than 500.” (CNN.com) Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was pulled over 80 miles north of Oklahoma City by a state trooper who noticed McVeigh's missing license plate. He was later arrested for having a concealed weapon. From there, a investigation was held and agents found traces of chemicals on McVeigh’s clothing similar to the ones from the bomb. They learned that McVeigh’s plan was due to the anger over the events at Waco Siege two years earlier. The bombing investigation was one of the most exhaustive in FBI history; “the Bureau had conducted more than 28,000 interviews, followed some 43,000 investigative leads, amassed three-and-a-half tons of evidence, and reviewed nearly a billion pieces of information.” (FBI.com) Oklahoma City bombing was “considered the worst and the largest terrorist act eve...
The National Guard soldiers arrive giving aid to wounded survivors. Investigators found shrapnel that included bits of nails, metals and bearing balls. Ball bearing is a type of rolling element bearing that uses balls to maintain separation between the bearing races. The lid a pressure cooker was found on a nearby rooftop. On April 19, the FBI, West New York Police Department, and Hudson County Sheriff's Department seized computer equipment from the suspects' sister's apartment located in West New York, New Jersey(Wikipedia). Joseph Reynolds, Watertown police officer, identified the brothers in a Honda Civic and the stolen SUV that the suspects stole. A gunfight brewed between the brothers and the local police. Four days later, after an intense manhunt that shut down the Boston area, police captured one of the bombing suspects, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose older brother and fellow suspect, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died following a shootout with law enforcement earlier that same day(History). Kadyrbayev was accused of throwing Tsarnaev's backpack into a trash bin after discovering it contained fireworks with gunpowder and removing a jar of Vaseline and a computer thumb
In his final days, Timothy McVeigh sounded that alarm. He spoke of Ruby Ridge and he spoke of Waco and of how, all around him, he saw the government beating down the very people it was created to serve. He could take no more of this abuse, but what can one man hope to do against the behemoth that our government has become? And so, on April 19th, 1995, he drove up to a federal institution with a massive bomb, and the rest, skewed though it may be, is history.
Outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Timothy McVeigh parked a rental truck loaded with a diesel-fuel-fertilizer bomb then immediately fled leaving the bomb to explode minutes later. While Timothy McVeigh was trying to flee not even an hour in, he was stopped for a traffic violation.
minds of many and all of America would be listening to his reaction to the
There were 168 casualties, 19 of those being children, as well as many injured humans. Dozens of vehicles were incinerated. All of these actions left the people infuriated they acted as quick as possible. The people in the building helped the police draw the man’s face out who had the van. The people around town figured out who he was and got a name. Just about 90 minutes later, after he set a bomb, he got pulled over by a state trooper because he didn’t have a license plate. When the FBI finally discovered who he was, he was already put in jail. This is when the case began to get very tiring. There was 28,000 interviews, 43,000 investigative leads, 1 billion viewed pieces of information, and 3 and a half tons of information. This investigation had 2,000 agents. The police and FBI gathered together chemicals from his clothes and an unknown card that had “TNT @$5/stick, need more” The jury wanted Timothy McVeigh sentenced to death, leaving Timothy to be given the lethal injection. However, his right wing extremists weren’t let off the hook so easily. Since Michael Fortier knew where the bomb was going to be set at, and Terry Nichols was Timothy’s helper in making the bomb, the Federal Government charged Timothy’s army buddies with helping McVeigh in plotting the bomb. Terry and Michael had years in
Terrorist Dzhokhar Tsamaev bombed the Boston Marathon April 15, 2013. Dzhokhar and his brother wanted to defend Islam from the U.S., which conducted the Iraq war and war in Afghanistan, in the view of the brothers, against muslims. The bombs were made from two pressure cookers. The bombs went off about 13 seconds apart near the finish line, killing 3 people and
Sunday Service, a seemingly peaceful day. At approximately 10:22 a.m., an explosion shook the 16th Street Baptist Church. A bomb was detonated on the east side of the building, caving in its interior walls. The impact of the discharge killed four girls and injured more than 20 others (History.com). The bodies of Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, were found in the basement bathroom under the rubble with 11-year-old Denise McNair (nydailynews.com). The event left a lasting effect on America.
The issue of domestic terrorism has been a fairly recent phenomenon. With little attention given until such acts as the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Unabomber made national headlines. It is because of this that there has been little research done on the area and most of the research there is focuses on the hate groups associated with the acts of violence. A strong force in the domestic terrorist movement is the fervent anti-government stance that these groups internalize. As Mark Hamm wrote in 1997, “I used the term apocalyptic violence to depict not only the astounding carnage witnessed on that day, but also to describe the anti-government counter-culture to which Timothy McVeigh and his accomplices belonged. In this statement he is referring to the assault on the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, TX. It is believed by many that this is the act which pushed McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City. Hamm went on further to argue, “The federal government had created an apocalyptic subculture in the hinterlands of the USA. And that it had done so through its ruthless use-of-force at Waco.”
Do you remember the conflict that America had in the Persian Gulf a few years back? An incident occurred there where a man drove a truck loaded with explosives into the building where more than 100 Marines were stationed. He blew up the building, along with the Marines. The incident was published by the AP Press soon after. Now do you remember the bombing just four years ago, in Oklahoma City? Suspects Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols drove a Ryder Van loaded with 4,800 pounds of fertilizer and fuel oil to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where it subsequently exploded, killing 169 people and injuring some 500 others. Of course you do. While both were massive acts of violence involving American citizens, the impact of such acts is always felt the most when it happens right here at home.
The Boston Marathon bombings happened on April 15, 2013 when two bombs exploded at 2:49 pm near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The bombers were brothers, Tamerlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who moved to the United States after the father applied for political asylum. The younger Tsarnaev brother said the attacked the Boston Marathon in retaliation for U.S. wars in Muslim countries. The Boston Marathon Bombing Trial is important to American society because it changed the way we looked at acts of terrorism legally, showed that people must effectively pay for their actions, and that we must never let our guard down.
Even though the message in “Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Address” by Bill Clinton and “A Quilt of a Country” by Anna Quindlen are both about coming together as a community and helping each other, they differ in that in “Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Address,” Bill Clinton was telling the listeners and victims to stay strong after their federal building was bombed. Whereas in “A Quilt of a Country,” Anna Quindlen was telling them to love the people they live with, and not hate them because of events from the past. On the other hand, both messages are about coming together and comforting each other in times of tragedy. The tragedies were 9/11 in “A Quilt of a Country” and the Oklahoma Bombing in “Oklahoma Bombing Memorial Address.” Quindlen feared that people would turn against each other, but it was crucial that they stay together. However, Quindlen was trying to convey that we should always be united whether there’s been a tragedy or not, and Clinton was trying to convey that we should stay strong and support all the relatives of the victims in Oklahoma.
In December, 1607, Captain George Kendall was the first known person to be executed in the territory, now known as the United States of America. Captain Kendall was shot by firing squad, accused of spying against the British for Spain (Green, 2005). On July 7, 1865 on the site of the current Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., four people including the first female to be executed, Mary Surratt, were hanged for co-conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (Swanson; Weinberg, 2006). More recently, Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001 for the April, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that killed 168 people including 19 children and injuring hundreds more (2004). These are just a few of the thousands of examples where justice had been served, for the despicable offenses these criminals inflict on the innocent.
On April 19, 1995 two former US Soldiers blew up a the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing over 150 people. Bill Clinton, President of the United States at that time, wrote a speech where he shared his sympathy for the friends and family of victims and united the country through his use of parallelism, patriotic language, and inclusive wording.
One that was fundamental for the rise of Islamophobia was an event that occurred in 1979 when Iranian revolutionists seized the American embassy in Tehran and held American citizen hostages for months. This event established the terrorist stereotype. However, the terrorist image was not targeting Muslim groups specifically, but rather Middle Eastern communities such as Arabs and Sikh (Love 405). By the mid of the 1990s, the stereotype about Middle Eastern terrorist was widely spread in the United States, specifically after the 1995 terrorist attack on Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, as the media rushed to assume that the terror is caused by an Arab before any evidence was available. A similar case occurred in 1998 with the accidental explosion that caused the destruction of TWA flight 800 (Kumar 255; Love 410). But the real upsurge of Islamophobia occurred in the 21st