Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist attack against the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, in the street in front of the Murrah building, attackers exploded a rented Ryder truck containing about 5,000 lb (2,300 kg) of explosive material. The car bomb was composed of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, and nitromethane, a highly volatile motor-racing fuel. Timothy McVeigh was arrested by an Oklahoma Highway Patrolman within an hour of the explosion. At his trial, the United States Government asserted that the motivation for the attack was to avenge the deaths of Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, whom McVeigh believed had been murdered by agents of the federal government. The attack was staged on the second anniversary of the Waco incident.
In all, 168 people were killed in the bombing, which made it the worst terrorist attack on United States soil prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The remains of the half-destroyed Federal building were demolished in May 1995. Today, the site of the Murrah building is occupied by a giant memorial which includes a large reflecting pool, two large "doorways", a museum, and a field full of chairs—one for each person lost. Some legislation was also introduced in response to the attack, notably the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
On February 19, 2001 an Oklahoma City bombing museum was dedicated at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center.
Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 on May 27, 1998 for failing to warn authorities about the attack.
Timothy McVeigh was sentenced to death for the bombing, after being convicted of, among other things, murdering federal law enforcement officials. He was executed by lethal injection at a U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, June 11, 2001.
An accomplice, Terry Nichols, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of manslaughter in a federal court trial. Nichols stood trial in McAlester, Oklahoma on state murder charges starting on March 1, 2004, and was convicted of 160 counts of first-degree murder, plus other felony charges on May 26. The penalty phase of the state trial, in which he could have been given the death penalty, ended in a jury deadlock, which automatically resulted in the imposition of a sentence of life impisonment. His brother, James was also accused of taking part in the bombing, but was released due to lack of evidence.
See also\n* List of terrorist incidents\n* Ronald GriesackerExternal links
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