Excerpt
SUMMARY: At the 20th anniversary, we look back at the Oklahoma City bombing. Public television station OETA shares reflections from survivors and victims’ families, and Judy Woodruff talks to former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, former Director of Homeland Security of Oklahoma Kerry Pettingill and Barry Grissom, U.S. attorney for the district of Kansas, for lessons learned from the attack.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, a moment that shocked the nation and changed the way we think about threats at home.
Two minutes past 9:00 on the morning of April 19, 1995, downtown Oklahoma City is torn apart.
MAN: I went under the table when the ceiling started falling in. And that’s what saved me, I guess.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A Ryder truck loaded with a diesel fuel and fertilizer bomb blew up next to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, cutting it in half; 168 people, including 19 children in its day care center, died. More than 650 were injured.
On April 21, Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh and another former soldier, Terry Nichols, were arrested, and later formally charged with the bombing.
Two days later, then President Bill Clinton came to comfort the city and the country.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: For we will stand with you for as many tomorrows as it takes.
(APPLAUSE)
JUDY WOODRUFF: McVeigh and Nichols, members of far right-wing anti-federal-government groups, timed the attack for the two-year anniversary of the fiery end to the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians. That breakaway religious sect, in Waco, Texas, had staged a 51-day standoff with law enforcement, which ended with an FBI-led assault on the heavily armed compound; 76 members of the group died that day.
In 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on 11 federal counts of murder and conspiracy. He was sentenced to death and executed in 2001. Nichols was later found guilty on federal charges of conspiracy and manslaughter and 161 state counts of first-degree murder. He is serving multiple life sentences in a Colorado federal prison.
The anniversary will be recognized throughout the coming weekend in Oklahoma City, and there will be much attention on how survivors and families are faring.
Our colleagues at the PBS station OETA produced a documentary called “Resilience” and spoke with many of them. It was done in conjunction with The Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Here’s an edited excerpt.
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