This Day in History, 1995: Oklahoma City Bombing

[mabfan]

Ten years ago today, a massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killed 168 people and injured hundreds more. The bomb, contained in a Ryder truck parked outside the front of the building, went off at 9:02 a.m. as people were preparing for the workday. Among the victims of America's worst incident of domestic terrorism were 19 children who were in the daycare center on the first floor of the building.

Timothy McVeigh was arrested for the bombing and convicted in June 1997. On June 11, 2001, McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.

May his victims rest in peace.

Comments

[stevethorn.livejournal.com]

Then let's hope that the New Scientist article is correct..

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7269&feedId=online-news_rss20

But that's just my opinion...

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Let's not forget the reason they did it, though: two years earlier, on this day, the BATF and the FBI massacred over 80 people in cold blood, in Waco TX. McVeigh's and Nichols's revenge against those agencies may have been misdirected, and certainly few if any of their victims had any personal culpability for what happened at Mt Carmel, but while remembering the dead of OKC, murdered by two criminals who have been caught and punished, let's spare some time for the dead of Mt Carmel, who were murdered by the government of the USA, and for whom no justice has been done.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the two sources where I saw this now, but last week I read about information coming out (thanks to declassified sources) that said the bombing may have also been the end result of an FBI sting gone bad.

An FBI informant (whose name I forget now, but they mentioned it in the article) had been working with McVeigh and Nichols, both of whom had been watched both by the FBI and the BATF for several months by April of '95. It was the informant who managed to get the explosive materials with the help of the FBI, which he then passed on to the two soon-to-be bombers. The idea was that the FBI would then swoop down on McVeigh and Nichols, but for reasons unclear ("unclear" being the way the reports put it) the sting never happened, and the Murrah Federal Building was destroyed.

I'm interested to see if anything more comes out of this.

[stevethorn.livejournal.com]

Michael,
Sorry to start up a debate.
I enjoy reading your Day in History, didn't mean to start up anything with my little shot of venom.
Steve