Oklahoma City Bombing
Working at a lakeside campground near McVeigh's old Army post, he and Nichols constructed an ANNM explosive device mounted in the back of a rented Ryder truck. This site was regarded as suitable because a moving truck would not seem out of place, given the transient population of the area. The bomb consisted of about 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane, a motor-racing fuel.
On April 19, 1995, McVeigh drove the truck to the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just as its offices opened for the day. Before arriving, he stopped to light a 2 minute fuse. At 09:02, a large explosion destroyed the north half of the building. The explosion killed 168 people, including 19 children in the day care center on the second floor, and injured 450 others.
McVeigh noted that he had no knowledge that the federal offices also ran a daycare center on the second floor of the building, and noted that he might have chosen a different target if he had known about the daycare center. According to Michel and Herbeck, McVeigh claimed not to have known there was a daycare center in the Murrah Building and said that if he had known it, in his own words:
It might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage.Michel and Herbeck quote McVeigh, with whom they spoke for some 75 hours, on his attitude to the victims:
To these people in Oklahoma who have lost a loved one, I'm sorry but it happens every day. You're not the first mother to lose a kid, or the first grandparent to lose a grandson or a granddaughter. It happens every day, somewhere in the world. I'm not going to go into that courtroom, curl into a fetal ball and cry just because the victims want me to do that.According to the Oklahoma City Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), more than 300 buildings were damaged. More than 12,000 volunteers and rescue workers took part in the rescue, recovery and support operations following the bombing. In reference to theories that he had assistance from others, McVeigh responded:
You can't handle the truth! Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?Read more about this topic: Timothy McVeigh
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