AMERICA - Armed Militia Groups

"Why armed militia groups are surging across the nation" PBS NewsHour 4/19/2017

ANSWER:  America is turning into a hate filled and a paranoid nation.  So 'they' lash out at anything that scares them.  These are frightened 'children' playing war with real guns.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Today signifies 22 years since the Oklahoma City bombing, an attack carried out by Timothy McVeigh that left 168 dead.  McVeigh sympathized with armed right-wing militia groups, which at the time, were surging in membership.  But armed militias have long been active on the fringes of American society and continue to rise today.  Special correspondent P.J. Tobia reports.

CHRIS “BLOOD AGENT” HILL, Georgia Security Force:  It's for conducting military operations in urban terrain.  We want to practice and rehearse moving out to these structures, covering each other, taking cover and concealment everywhere we can find it.

P.J. TOBIA, special correspondent:  These men and women call themselves the Georgia Security Force.

CHRIS “BLOOD AGENT” HILL:  Our common goal is to provide for security for ourselves, our friends and our families, and the other people in our states, if and when the need should arise to do so.

P.J. TOBIA:  Their leader, Chris Hill, aka 'Blood Agent,' says the need could arise at any time.

CHRIS “BLOOD AGENT” HILL:  I think, what the government gives, the government can take away.  If they're providing the security for us, they can take it away.

AMERICA - Roots of a Domestic Terror Attack

"Tracing the roots of the America's biggest domestic terror attack" PBS NewsHour 2/7/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing was the largest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.  A new documentary on the PBS series American Experience takes a fresh look at the events and motivations that led to the attack by Timothy McVeigh, and finds resonance for today.  Jeffrey Brown interviews director Barak Goodman.

MAN:  There's heavy damage done.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  April 19, 1995.

MAN:  About a third of the building has been blown away.

JEFFREY BROWN:  A Ryder rental truck with 5,000 pounds of explosives ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City; 168 people were killed, 19 children among them.

WOMAN:  Who has come in here and done this terrible thing?

BARAK GOODMAN, Director, “Oklahoma City:  I knew very little of the story.  I mean, I remember — like a lot of people remember that day, and the image of that building, you know, with its face blown off, an image that we weren't used to or accustomed to at the time.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Barak Goodman is the director of the film “Oklahoma City.”

BARAK GOODMAN:  While I think a lot of people remember this as a simple story of a lone terrorist committing an act, it actually has very deep roots.  And when we pulled on those roots, a whole ‘nother story sort of appeared.

JEFFREY BROWN:  The film delves into the rise of white nationalist militias in the 1980s, and two later events that galvanized the country and deeply influenced Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh: the siege of Ruby Ridge in 1992, when the FBI and U.S. Marshals confronted Randy Weaver at his home in rural Idaho, resulting in the deaths of Weaver's wife, son and a U.S. Marshal.

And the following year, Waco, Texas, when federal agents, responding to reports of weapons stockpiling, attempted to arrest the leader of a religious sect known as the Branch Davidians.  A firefight broke out, killing 10, including four ATF agents.  And after a 51-day standoff, the complex went up in flames as agents moved in with tear gas.  More than 70 people died.

During the long standoff, then 24-year-old Army veteran Timothy McVeigh had been watching nearby.

WOMAN:  Timothy McVeigh had already apparently been very concerned about what had happened at Ruby Ridge.  So he came down to Waco and sold bumper stickers with pro-gun, anti-government slogans.

He saw the raid as clear evidence of what the government would do to try to confiscate guns and persecute gun owners.

LINK:  "Oklahoma City"

OKLAHOMA CITY - Bombing's 20th Anniversary

"‘There was no playbook’ for handling the Oklahoma City bombing" PBS NewsHour 4/16/2015

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.