Thirty Years Ago: The Oklahoma City Bombing

 

Thirty years ago today, two fascist monsters -- Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols -- blew up a Federal building in Oklahoma City, OK, killing 168 innocent people, including 19 babies and children, and injuring 684.   Never forget:

On the morning of April 19, 1995, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in United States history took place at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The building was home to numerous governmental agencies, including offices for employees of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives as well as the Social Security Administration, and recruiting offices for the Army and Marine Corps.

That morning had started like any typical workday for the hundreds of employees inside. Just as they were sitting down at their desks to begin their day, a Ryder rental truck full of explosives parked in front of the building. Per the FBI, the truck contained a mixture of 2,000 lbs. of agricultural fertilizer, diesel fuel and other chemicals.

At 9:02 a.m., the bombs detonated inside the vehicle, instantly crumbling the north side of the nine-story concrete and granite building. With a third of the building reduced to rubble, the FBI compared the surrounding area to a war zone. Nearby cars were incinerated and almost 300 other buildings were damaged or destroyed. The impact of the explosion could be felt all across the city — including in the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office five miles northwest of the federal building. 

“People, they’d come out and they were walking like zombies and they’d walk as far as they could walk and they’d collapse. They were in shock,” Dr. Carl Spengler recalled in Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror.

In the midst of the chaos, concern grew that there was another bomb planted in the building and the area was temporarily evacuated, leaving trapped victims behind. Once the supposed bomb was retrieved from the eighth floor, it was taken off-site to be examined, only to be discovered that it was a prop from a planned sting operation, per Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror.

Rescue efforts were able to begin again later that morning. Over 50 people were rescued from the debris in total, according to The Oklahoma City Bombing by Geraldine Giordano, but many others died due to their injuries while they were trapped...

The full story of the bombing and the perpetrators continues at the link.

Monsters like McVeigh and Nichols are still in our body politic, some choosing guns to express their violent pathologies, some choosing cars, some preferring bombs.  Now that their would- be dictator and his compliant cult are in power, they almost certainly feel more enabled than ever to act out against the regime's long list of "enemies."  Pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists, installing the likes of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at the FBI, etc., can only add to their sense that their time has come to "shatter nations" and "destroy kingdoms."

(Photo:  the Alfred F. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, OK, April 1995/ Bill Waugh, AP/Shutterstock.com)