My paper is about the Oklahoma City Bombing. My paper will include a summary of the event and the charges that the terrorists faced. I will also include information on the youngest survivor, and a famous photo taken showing a firefighter holding a deceased child.
On the treacherous day of April 19, 1995, outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, there was a truck-bomb explosion. The bombing killed 168 people and injured over 680 others. The explosion destroyed or affected 324 buildings, burned and destroyed 86 cars, and shattered glass windows in about 258 buildings that were nearby. The aftermath cost over 652 million dollars. Until September 11, 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing was the worst terrorist attack that took place on U.S. soil.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated eleven Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, that consisted of 665 rescue workers who helped in rescue and recovery operations. Within ninety minutes of the bombing, the perpetrators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols , was stopped by an Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger. The pair were driving without a license plate, and then were arrested for illegal weapons possession. They were almost immediately …show more content…
linked to the attack and within days, both were arrested. McVeigh detonated a Ryder truck that was full of explosives. Nichols, the co-conspirator, helped in the bomb preparation. McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the two year anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at Waco.
Timothy McVeigh was an anti government militant.
On June 2, 1997, he was convicted on all counts that were charged, and on August 14, he was sentenced to the death penalty. It wasn’t until June 2001, McVeigh who was now 33, died from lethal injection at U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute Indiana. He was the first prisoner to be put to death since 1963. As for Nichols, he was found guilty on one count of conspiracy, and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. In 2004, he was sentenced to 161 consecutive life terms. A man named Michael Fortier knew about McVeigh’s plan, and testified to reduce his sentence. In 1998, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison, but in 2007; he was released, and entered the witness protection
program.
The youngest survivor of the bombing is PJ Allen, whom was barely two years old when the bomb tore through his day care at the Murrah Building. He may not have lost his live, but he had broken bones, burns over 55% of his body, lung damage from breathing in the debris, and a tracheotomy tube until he was 10 years old. Allen was in the hospital for three months, and he still has trouble with breathing. Allen was one of six children to make it out of the day care. He is now a student at Oklahoma State University, and has ambitions of running a hotel when he graduates. Even through all his limitations, Allen considers everything that has happened to be a blessing.
Baylee Almon, one year old, died in the catastrophic act of terrorism, where a total of 168 lives were taken, twenty of them children. One of the most iconic images (shown at the end) shows firefighter Chris Fields is gently carrying Baylee’s tiny, breaking body out of the scene. A short time later Baylee passed. Fields and the mother of Baylee, Erin Almon, have since become close friends. She told viewers on talk-shows that she had really wanted to meet and thank him. Captain Fields, tears filling his eyes, explains how hard it is for him to talk about his experiences. He has since had PTSD in the years after. He claimed it was the support of his wife that he had not left the fire department. Fields has 28 years of experience and plans on retiring in the next three years. Mrs. Almon runs the Protecting People First Foundation, a non-profit organization set up in her daughter’s memory educates people on how to deal with both natural and manmade disasters.
As a result of the bombing, the U.S. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which tightened the standards for habeas corpus in the United States, as well as the legislation designed to increase the protection around the federal buildings to lessen future terrorist attacks. On April 19, 2000, a dedication, the Oklahoma City National Memorial, was set on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, that commemorates the victims in the building. Annual remembrance services are held at the same time of day as the explosion.