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McVeigh, a militia movement sympathizer, sought revenge against the federal government for its handling of the Waco Siege, which had ended in the deaths of 76 people exactly two years prior to the bombing, as well as for the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992.
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McVeigh and militia
McVeigh, an American militia movement sympathizer who was a Gulf War veteran, had detonated an explosive-filled Ryder truck parked in front of the building.
Additional theories claim the bombing was done by the government to frame the militia movement or to provide the impetus for new antiterrorism legislation while using McVeigh as a scapegoat.
Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, writes that Cooper was well known within the militia movement for his book, Behold a Pale Horse and his anti-government shortwave radio program that reportedly included Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh as a fan.
McVeigh and movement
For the five months following the Waco Siege, McVeigh worked at gun shows and handed out free cards printed up with Lon Horiuchi's name and address, " in the hope that somebody in the Patriot movement would assassinate the sharpshooter.
McVeigh and sought
Jones also believed that McVeigh was part of a larger conspiracy, and sought to present him as " the designated patsy ", but McVeigh disagreed with Jones arguing that rationale for his defense.
McVeigh and revenge
McVeigh claimed that the bombing was revenge for " what the U. S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge.
When the compound went up in flames, McVeigh and Nichols were enraged and began to plot revenge on the federal government.
McVeigh and against
Michael and Lori Fortier testified against McVeigh and Nichols ; Michael was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the U. S. government, and Lori received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.
McVeigh and Nichols cited the federal government's actions against the Branch Davidian compound in the 1993 Waco Siege ( shown above ) as a reason they perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing.
McVeigh's sister Jennifer was accused of illegally mailing bullets to McVeigh, but she was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against him.
The prosecution called 137 witnesses, including Michael Fortier and his wife Lori, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer McVeigh, all of whom testified to confirm McVeigh's hatred of the government and his desire to take militant action against it.
Michael agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence and immunity for his wife.
McVeigh hoped to inspire a revolt against what he considered to be a tyrannical federal government.
McVeigh claimed to have been a target of bullying at school and that he took refuge in a fantasy world where he imagined retaliating against those bullies.
McVeigh was reprimanded by the military for purchasing a " White Power " T-shirt at a Ku Klux Klan protest against black servicemen who wore what he viewed as " Black Power " T-shirts around the army base.
The U. S. Department of Justice brought federal charges against McVeigh for causing the deaths of eight federal officers leading to a possible death penalty for McVeigh ; it could not bring charges against McVeigh for the remaining 160 murders in federal court because those deaths fell under the jurisdiction of the state of Oklahoma.
Because McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death, the State of Oklahoma did not file murder charges against McVeigh for the other 160 deaths.
In a 1, 200-word essay dated March 1998, from the federal maximum-security prison at Florence, Colo., McVeigh claimed that the terrorist bombing was “ morally equivalent ” to U. S. military actions against Iraq and other foreign lands.
McVeigh read Unintended Consequences and noted that if it had come out a few years earlier, he would have given serious consideration to using sniper attacks in a war of attrition against the government instead of bombing a federal building:
Much of the evidence against convicted American bomber Timothy McVeigh was circumstantial, for example.
They testified against both McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a 12-year prison term for Michael Fortier and immunity for Lori.
Former army buddy Michael Fortier testified against both McVeigh and Nichols.
Fortier provided " solid bricks of evidence " for the cases against McVeigh and Nichols, according to the prosecutor.
The defense attempted to cast doubt on the case against Nichols by calling witnesses who said they saw other men with McVeigh before the bombing and by claiming the government had manipulated the evidence against Nichols.
McVeigh and federal
Motivated by his hatred of the federal government and angered by what he perceived as its mishandling of the Waco Siege ( 1993 ) and the Ruby Ridge incident ( 1992 ), McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at Waco.
McVeigh later decided to bomb a federal building as a response to the raids.
McVeigh initially intended only to destroy a federal building, but he later decided that his message would be better received if many people were killed in the bombing.
On June 6, federal judge Richard Paul Matsch ruled the documents would not prove McVeigh innocent and ordered the execution to proceed.
After President George W. Bush approved the execution ( McVeigh was a federal inmate and federal law dictates that the President must approve the execution of federal prisoners ), he was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute in Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11.
In addition to Michael assisting McVeigh in scouting the federal building, Lori had helped McVeigh laminate a fake driver's license which was later used to rent the Ryder truck.
McVeigh told Fortier of his plans to blow up a federal building, but Fortier declined to participate.
McVeigh noted that he had no knowledge that the federal offices also ran a daycare center on the second floor of the building, and noted that he might have chosen a different target if he had known about the daycare center.
On August 10, 1995, McVeigh was indicted on 11 federal counts, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of a weapon of mass destruction, destruction by explosives and eight counts of first-degree murder.
On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on all 11 counts of the federal indictment.
McVeigh and government
McVeigh stated in his authorized biography that he wanted to minimize nongovernmental casualties, so he ruled out a 40-story government building in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of the presence of a florist's shop on the ground floor.
McVeigh wrote a letter to Moore in which he claimed that the robbery had been committed by government agents.
McVeigh, he said, had developed a hatred of the government during his time in the army, after reading The Turner Diaries.
According to law professor Douglas O. Linder, McVeigh wanted Jones to present a " necessity defense "— which would argue that he was in " imminent danger " from the government ( that his bombing was intended to prevent future crimes by the government, such as the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents ).
Even many who agreed with some of McVeigh's politics viewed his act as counterproductive, with much of the criticism focused on the deaths of innocent children ; critics expressed chagrin that McVeigh had not assassinated specific government leaders.
McVeigh believed that the bomb attack had a positive impact on government policy.
While in high school, McVeigh became interested in computers and hacked into government computer systems on his Commodore 64, under a handle – " The Wanderer " – borrowed from the song by Dion DiMucci.
It is claimed that while visiting friends in Decker, Michigan, McVeigh complained that the Army had implanted a microchip into his buttocks so that the government could keep track of him.
The government also imposed new firearms restrictions in 1994 that McVeigh believed threatened his livelihood.
Around this time, McVeigh and Nichols also began making bulk purchases of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, for resale to survivalists, since rumors were circulating that the government was preparing to ban it.
McVeigh instructed his lawyers to use a necessity defense, but they ended up not doing so, because they would have had to prove that McVeigh was in " imminent danger " from the government.
") They would have argued that his bombing of the Murrah building was a justifiable response to what McVeigh believed were the crimes of the U. S. government at Waco, Texas.
* In an interview before his execution, convicted U. S. bomber ( and Gulf War veteran ) Timothy McVeigh referred to the deaths of 19 children killed in the government office building during the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as " collateral damage ".
McVeigh said that he bombed the Murrah building on the two-year anniversary of the Waco Siege in 1993 to retaliate for US government actions there and at the siege at Ruby Ridge.
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