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America is a different place today than it was in , primarily because of technology. Some things, however, remain largely unchanged: namely, an antipathy toward the federal government that manifests itself in the hate perpetrated by the militia movement and white supremacists, but also in politically expedient, at-large, fed-bashing by both Republicans and Democrats.

One reason is that the fringe groups seem to have become more a part of the fabric of society, thanks in large part to advances in communications that allow them to spread their rhetoric instantaneously to a potential audience of millions. Another reason is that verbal attacks on federal employees are seeping into every crevice of society.

Members of Congress have chosen the same vicious language as the NRA to belittle federal employees working in law enforcement, land management and tax collection. Fast-forward to April , when armed militia members flocked to Nevada to support Bundy in the continuing battle against the BLM.

The pertinent portion of Burmeister ‘ s dictation regarding specimen Q, an item recovered at a location associated with one of the defendants, is as follows:. The results of an instrumental examination of residues removed from specimen Q identified the presence of ammonium and nitrate ions.

Since ammonium and nitrate ions have been found to occur naturally in the environment[,] the source of these two components in the specimen residues can not be determined. Williams reproduced this passage verbatim in a report issued May 24, But in the section of the September 5, , explosives report concerning ANFO, Williams included only the first paragraph of the passage and replaced the second paragraph with: You should refer to the Laboratory report dated May 24, for additional information and examination techniques concerning specimen Q Williams gave the following reasons for replacing the second paragraph of Burmeister ‘ s dictation:.

On this particular case and speaking with Steve, Q had an unusual configuration of ammonium and nitrate ions [] , which was more significant than the other ammonium ions or nitrate ions that were found on other specimens. And the reason that I put it in here was specifically to do exactly what that statement did.

It attracted attention. In Steve ‘ s report it says they are found in nature. So one would just brush that away. Here, this is drawing attention so that Steve gets asked more detail about that. These reasons do not justify replacing the second paragraph of the dictation. As for the first reason, if Burmeister thought the concentration of the ions had significance, the proper way of calling attention to this finding would have been to add it to the dictation.

The second reason implies that one purpose of replacing the second paragraph was to, in effect, hide it so that the first paragraph was not brush[ed] away.

This would be improper. If the chemist ‘ s conclusion embraces the second paragraph, it is beyond Williams ‘ expertise, and outside his discretion as PE, to discount it. Williams stated in his OIG interview, however, that Burmeister approved the replacement of the second paragraph. Burmeister did not recall whether or not he approved the replacement. Accordingly, we are unable to confirm Williams ‘ assertion that Burmeister sanctioned the replacement.

During the course of Williams ‘ discussion of Q, he expressed the following opinion:. We found ammonium and nitrate ions; it ‘ s of no relevance. We found nitrate ions; it ‘ s of no relevance. If we keep saying this is of no relevance, why are we even having chemists do examinations? These are troubling sentiments. It is up to the prosecution or defense to establish, through expert testimony, the relevance or weight that such data should be accorded.

We conclude that Williams should not have replaced the second paragraph of Burmeister ‘ s dictation and that Burmeister erred if he agreed to the replacement. If the concentration of the ions was significant, Burmeister should have amended his dictation to include this finding.

In his January 9, , letter, Whitehurst makes numerous additional allegations, most of which lack merit. Whitehurst claims that on several occasions in Williams ‘ report Williams exceeds his expertise points 1, 3, , 15, On each occasion, however, Williams relied on other experts, including AEs, whose dictation he included verbatim.

Whitehurst questions Williams ‘ conclusion that none of the structural damage evident within the Murrah building was caused by secondary explosive devices or explosions. Whitehurst asserts that Williams cannot test his hypothesis unless he rebuilds the Murrah building and explodes it again with secondary charges to see whether the damage is different.

We reject Whitehurst ‘ s assertion that the Murrah building must be rebuilt and destroyed again in order to render a valid opinion about secondary explosive devices. We find reasonable support for Williams ‘ opinion.

This included the failure to find damage consistent with another seat of an explosion and the opinions of seismologists who concluded that there was a single blast with ancillary or auxiliary blast effects traveling surface and subsurface.

Whitehurst questions Williams ‘ conclusion that tire fragments displayed high explosive damage. Williams told us that there is really unique kind of explosive damage, something that in the courtroom someone could see that this tire wasn ‘ t a blowout, it wasn ‘ t overinflated. We have not viewed the tire fragments. For Williams ‘ opinion to be valid, it should be supported by empirical studies of high explosive damage to tires or substantial experience with such damage.

An AE submitted the following dictation, which was reproduced verbatim in Williams ‘ report:. This yellow film [on Q] and the yellow film from K were examined microscopically, microchemically and instrumentally.

Based upon the comparison examinations conducted, the yellow film from Q was determined to match the Tedlar film from K in color, type and composition. Therefore, it was concluded that Q could have originated from the box portion of a Ryder truck like that represented by K Whitehurst criticizes this opinion on the ground that the FBI ‘ s paint protocol has not been validated.

Although we have not viewed the data or charts underlying the AE ‘ s opinion, we have no problem with the opinion ‘ s form. In the above passage, the AE stated what he did examined [the film] microscopically, microchemically and instrumentally and stated that his opinion of a match was [b]ased upon the comparison examinations conducted, which was accurate. Assuming the AE accurately reported his results, his conclusion that Q could have originated from the box portion of a Ryder truck like that represented by K does not appear to be overstated.

The FBI ‘ s paint protocol should be validated. This could be done through the FBI ‘ s own documented tests or by determining that the protocol uses peer-reviewed procedures commonly accepted in the literature or in industry.

When I talked with Unit Chief James Corby shortly before his retirement in December , he advised me that he agreed with me, that we do not determine the composition of paint and that because we have not validated the paint protocol we can not say that the two compositions are the same. Corby denied Whitehurst ‘ s assertion. Corby thought the FBI could analyze paint pursuant to the protocol and render valid opinions, even though the protocol was not yet validated.

Specimen Q is the rear door latch from the bomb laden truck. The specimen displays extensive high explosive damage, such as pitting and cratering. Whitehurst contends that Supervisory Special Agent Richard Hahn ‘ s testimony about pitting and cratering in the Avianca case see Section E, supra constitutes exculpatory evidence relative to the Oklahoma City case. Whitehurst is incorrect.

Hahn testified that the pitting and cratering in Avianca indicated a high explosive with a VOD in the area of 20, feet per second. Hahn contends that in this testimony he was not asserting that pitting can only occur at that velocity, but only that the unique pitting in Avianca indicated that VOD. It is well-known that pitting and cratering can result from the detonation of a high explosive with a VOD of 10, feet per second or more.

Hahn ‘ s testimony about pitting and cratering in Avianca is irrelevant to the Oklahoma City case. Whitehurst faults Williams for failing to mention a contamination study Whitehurst performed in June that found PETN contamination in a location in the EU and in an evidence storage area. Any connection between the findings and the contamination is at this point speculative. We think the AE rather than Williams was the appropriate examiner to determine whether the AE ‘ s conclusions concerning PETN should be modified because of the contamination study.

Whitehurst criticizes the following passage on page 19 of Williams ‘ report:. A mixture of ground ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder, in significant quantities, could be utilized as an explosive main charge or in some cases as a booster. Whitehurst contends that [a]s an objective scientist, Williams might also have reported that the ammonium nitrate could be used as a fertilizer and the aluminum powder as an additive to paint.

Later, as the FBI investigated him, Fortier bragged to friends over tapped phones of how he planned to make “a cool million” by selling his story for a movie, complained about his treatment by the media, and reminisced about smoking crystal meth. He also made sneering, foul-mouthed comments about those investigating the case.

Lori Fortier, who watched McVeigh build the bomb model and heard him discuss his planned attack, joined in, too. Using an iron at her home, she laminated the fake driver’s license that McVeigh later used to rent the Ryder rental truck in which he assembled the bomb.

The indepth letters Timothy McVeigh invited the Observer to look at were sent to the safekeeping of his friend Bob Papovich who had up until now been told that the correspondence was to be kept ‘off-the-record’.

But in a letter to Papovich written from death row on May 3, McVeigh told Papovich that these documents he had sent him contained ‘the final piece missing from the “why” equation.

In a letter to Observer journalist Tracy McVeigh, the convicted Oklahoma City bomber gave Papovich’s phone number and pleaded: ‘Ask him specifically for my 3-page letter “why I bombed the Murrah building’.

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Oklahoma city bombing motive –

 
February 21, Retrieved March 22,

Oklahoma city bombing motive –

The Oklahoma City bombing occurred when a truck packed with explosives was detonated on April 19, , outside the Alfred P.

Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing people and leaving hundreds more injured. The blast was set off by anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh, who in was executed for his crimes. His co-conspirator Terry Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. Shortly after a. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later, the death toll stood at people.

More than other people were injured in the bombing, which damaged or destroyed over buildings in the immediate area. A massive hunt for the bombing suspects ensued, and on April 21 an eyewitness description led authorities to charge Timothy McVeigh , a former U. Army soldier, in the case. As it turned out, McVeigh was already in jail, having been stopped a little more than an hour after the bombing for a traffic violation and then arrested for unlawfully carrying a handgun.

Shortly before he was scheduled to be released from jail, he was identified as a prime suspect in the bombing and charged. Both men were found to be members of a radical right-wing survivalist group based in Michigan. Two days later, McVeigh and Nichols were indicted on charges of murder and unlawful use of explosives.

While still in his teens, McVeigh, who was raised in western New York , acquired a penchant for guns and began honing survivalist skills he believed would be necessary in the event of a Cold War showdown with the Soviet Union. He graduated from high school in and in enlisted in the Army, where he proved to be a disciplined and meticulous soldier.

While in the military, McVeigh befriended fellow soldier Nichols, who was more than a dozen years his senior and shared his survivalist interests. At the time, the American military was downsizing after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another result of the end of the Cold War was that McVeigh shifted his ideology from a hatred of foreign communist governments to a suspicion of the U.

McVeigh, Nichols and their associates were deeply radicalized by such events as the August shoot-out at Ruby Ridge , Idaho , between federal agents and survivalist Randy Weaver at his rural cabin, and the Waco siege of April, , in which 75 members of a Branch Davidian religious sect died near Waco, Texas.

McVeigh planned an attack on the Murrah Building, which housed regional offices of such federal agencies as the Drug Enforcement Administration , the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives , the agency that had launched the initial raid on the Branch Davidian compound. On April 19, , the two-year anniversary of the disastrous end to the Waco siege, McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck loaded with a diesel-fuel-fertilizer bomb outside the Murrah Building and fled.

Minutes later, the massive bomb exploded. On June 2, , McVeigh was convicted on all 11 counts against him, and on August 14 the death penalty was formally imposed. The following year, Fortier, who had met McVeigh in the Army, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn authorities about the Oklahoma City bombing plan. Fortier was released from prison in and entered the witness protection program. In December , Nichols was found guilty on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, for killing federal law enforcement personnel, and was sentenced to life in prison.

In , he was tried on state charges in Oklahoma and convicted of counts of first-degree murder, including fetal homicide. He received consecutive life terms in prison. In December , McVeigh asked a federal judge to stop all appeals of his convictions and to set a date for his execution. The request was granted, and on June 11, , McVeigh, at age 33, died by lethal injection at the U. He was the first federal prisoner to be put to death since But if you see something that doesn’t look right, click here to contact us!

Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. When two home-grown terrorists detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, , killing people, it was, at the time, the biggest terror attack in U. During his adolescence in upstate New York, Timothy McVeigh developed an enthusiasm for guns and a suspicion of governmental authority. He drew inspiration from the novel The Turner Diaries, written by the white nationalist William Luther Pierce, which depicts a right-wing The land that today makes up Oklahoma was added to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase of Throughout the 19th century, the U.

The bombing was controversial because Dresden was neither important to German wartime production nor a major The Waco Siege began in early , when a government raid on a compound in Axtell, Texas, led to a day standoff between federal agents and members of a millennial Christian sect called the Branch Davidians.

The siege ended dramatically on April 19, , when fires consumed The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, , when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights The Boston Marathon Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on April 15, , when two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding more than other people.

After an intense manhunt, police captured one of the bombing The city has Tensions between Libya and the United States had been mounting for years when, in March , the two sides fired on each other in disputed waters off the Libyan coast. The following month, a bomb went off in a West Berlin disco popular with American servicemen, killing two U.

Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Shortly after a. Domestic Terrorists Behind the Oklahoma City Bombing While still in his teens, McVeigh, who was raised in western New York , acquired a penchant for guns and began honing survivalist skills he believed would be necessary in the event of a Cold War showdown with the Soviet Union.

Scroll to Continue. Recommended for you. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Confederate Bomb Plot. Oklahoma The land that today makes up Oklahoma was added to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase of Waco Siege The Waco Siege began in early , when a government raid on a compound in Axtell, Texas, led to a day standoff between federal agents and members of a millennial Christian sect called the Branch Davidians.

Birmingham Church Bombing The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, , when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights Boston Marathon Bombing The Boston Marathon Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on April 15, , when two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding more than other people.

Remembering the Lockerbie Bombing Tensions between Libya and the United States had been mounting for years when, in March , the two sides fired on each other in disputed waters off the Libyan coast.

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