These monumental twin gates frame the moment of destruction — AM — and mark the formal entrances to the Memorial. The Gate represents the innocence before the attack. The Gate symbolizes the moment healing began. The pool occupies what was once N. Fifth Street. Here, a shallow depth of gently flowing water helps soothe wounds, with calming sounds providing a peaceful setting for quiet thoughts.
The placid surface creates the reflection of someone changed forever by their visit to the Memorial. The Chairs represent those killed on April 19, They stand in nine rows, each representing a floor of the Federal Building where the field is now located.
Each chair bears the name of someone killed on that floor. Nineteen smaller chairs stand for the children. On the east end of the Memorial stands the only remaining walls from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Thurman acknowledged in his OIG interview that this is a possibility, but said that [i]t may not be the absolute one possibility. And Thurman did not see any reason why it could not have been an electric initiator. Williams also concluded that a non-electric burning-type fuse of either hobby fuse or a commercial safety fuse was used.
Thurman acknowledged at his OIG interview that this was one of the possibilities [b]ut certainly not the only one. Further, Williams ' conclusion that the time delay was 2 minutes, 15 seconds was just one of many possible scenarios. Accordingly, Thurman should not have approved any of these conclusions.
Additionally, we believe Thurman should have recognized the internal inconsistency in the statement Traces of PETN were located on specimen Q18, however could not be confirmed. He should have required that the sentence be rewritten so that it made sense.
Thurman ' s method of reviewing Williams ' report was deficient. I asked him [Williams] specifically about that. I said, Is there a reason that you have for putting this arbitrary figure in there? And he said yes. And I said, Now, we don ' t normally do that. I ' ve never done it before.
And he went into an explanation. I may have told him that I wouldn ' t do that. I don ' t remember whether I told him, because I know I would not. I would not be that specific on 13, feet per second. In this case, you know, there was review and even though. I am the direct line supervisor, even though I don ' t personally in the exam would do that, it ' s up -- it ' s up to him as an examiner to do that.
I said, Now, let ' s don ' t make an absolute decision today that it ' s going to have to stay in there.
I said, You think about what I have suggested and you go back and you go through your data and you go through your -- not really, it ' s not a mindset, but what you think that you want to put into this report and then come back and tell me. And he came back with the -- with the final report. And it was still in there. And I said, Okay, I guess you ' ve decided to leave it in there.
He said, Yeah. I feel that I can support it and it belongs there. I said, That ' s your conclusion. This is an improper way for a supervisor to review an examiner ' s report. The issue for the supervisor should not be whether the examiner is comfortable with the conclusion but whether the supervisor is.
It should not be up to him as an examiner to do that, but up to the supervisor to determine whether the conclusions in the report are valid.
By leaving the matter to Williams, Thurman failed to perform an appropriate review. Throughout his OIG interview, Thurman attempted to justify his approval of the report by saying he based it on the conversation he had with Williams about the report, but then pleaded a lack of memory of the details of the conversation. Thus, in the interview he could not justify some of the conclusions in the report, but he implied that Williams provided justification in the conversation although Thurman could not remember what it was.
We find this unsatisfactory. Most of the conclusions criticized above came at the end of the report without explanation, and the preceding pages do not support them. Then, suddenly, without explanation, he concludes that the main charge was ANFO. If, in fact, Williams provided to Thurman additional reasons justifying his conclusions, Thurman should have required Williams to include those reasons in the report.
Thurman acknowledged in his OIG interview that the conclusions in a report should be based on, and flow from, the contents of the report. Thurman, however, failed to make sure that this was done in this case.
Martz ' s Examination of Evidence. Shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, Martz examined some evidence in the case for explosives residue. The evidence consisted of clothing and a knife seized from one of the defendants. Martz did this as an extra pair of hands while Burmeister was busy outside the Laboratory.
Martz ' s function was to perform instrumental examinations to assist Burmeister who was in charge of the residue analysis. Some issues have arisen concerning Martz ' s examinations. Supervisory Special Agent Burmeister told us in a interview that Martz erred in some examinations in the Oklahoma City case. I think he did an acceptable job there. In the later interview Burmeister said that his first interview was based only on Martz ' s sparse notes and that, between the first and second interview, Martz told Burmeister he did more than what is reflected in the notes.
Burmeister told us in , [W]hen I had an opportunity to talk with him [Martz], I didn ' t find that there was anything wrong with what he did. Burmeister acknowledged in , however, that Martz did not, but should have, followed the provision in the explosives residue protocol that directs examiners to view specimens microscopically before any residue is extracted.
The explosives residue protocol requires the examiner to perform a microscopic examination of the specimen before any residue is extracted from it. Martz failed to do this. He only made a visual examination of the clothing and knife before he vacuumed the former and swabbed the latter. When asked about his failure to perform the microscopic examination, Martz initially told us that the explosives residue protocol does not require microscopic examinations.
In a response to the preliminary draft of this Report, Martz stated: My interpretation of visual and microscopic analysis, which was part of the protocol at that time, was that if something was observed by visual examination, that microscopic analysis would be performed and that is what I did in this case. Martz Reply Feb. By this Martz apparently means that because he did not observe anything on the visual examination, he did not do a microscopic examination.
Because this is Martz ' s third explanation for his failure to perform a microscopic examination and is an explanation that is inconsistent with the other two, it lacks credibility. Moreover, Martz ' s present interpretation of the protocol is unpersuasive, because one of the purposes of the microscopic examination is to detect objects not observed in an unaided visual examination.
As noted, Martz vacuumed the clothing. In his interview Burmeister, described this as an unqualified technique. In his interview, however, Burmeister said that vacuuming is a qualified. As noted by Burmeister, if an examiner finds material through visual or microscopic examination, the examiner should first remove the material with forceps or a scalpel, before vacuuming, to preserve the integrity of the sample and to avoid commingling two different residues.
Although there is no reference to extraction techniques in the explosives residue protocol, the techniques are addressed in the training of explosives residue analysts. Martz had not undergone the one-year training in explosives residue analysis. Regarding the knife, Burmeister said in that Martz should have rinsed it rather than used a moistened swab. In Burmeister said that both swabbing and rinsing were permissible, but added that the decision on which technique to use should be based on a microscopic examination of the knife.
The protocol does not address the issue of which technique to use. We conclude that Martz erred by 1 deviating from the protocol requirement of a microscopic examination without first consulting with Burmeister, 2 initially telling us that such an examination is not part of the protocol, and 3 not including all of his examinations in his notes. During conversations with Steve Burmeister last Thursday and Friday Steve advised me concerning some of his findings in the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing matter.
He advised me again that he did not find PETN on the knife of McVeigh as had Roger Martz but did find nitroglycerine despite the fact that Martz did not find such material. Burmeister also advised me that he did not find PETN on the trousers of McVeigh but he did find nitroglycerine in and around the pockets of the pants.
Whitehurst ' s doubly hedged opinion consistent with. Burmeister told us that he was not surprise[d] that he did not find PETN on the knife after Martz had swabbed it.
Although Burmeister found nitroglycerine on the clothing after Martz failed to do so, Burmeister told us he performed different examinations. Finally, if there was contamination, it was not necessarily by Martz. Williams ' report contains several serious flaws. His opinion as to the VOD of the main charge was unjustifiable; his statement of the VOD of ANFO was incomplete; his categorical identification of the main charge as ANFO was inappropriate; his estimate of the weight of the main charge was too specific and based in part on improper grounds; his conclusion as to the containers for the main charge was unjustifiably categorical; his categorical identification of the initiator for the booster was improper; his conclusions concerning a non-electric detonator, the fuse, and the time delay were scientifically insupportable; his conclusions were not supported by the contents of the report; and he included some AE dictation in a selective or confusing way.
These errors were all tilted in such a way as to incriminate the defendants. We are troubled that the opinions in Williams ' report may have been tailored to conform to the evidence associated with the defendants. We conclude that Williams failed to present an objective, unbiased, competent report. We also conclude that Thurman did not properly review Williams ' report. 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.
Would the Memorial become an enduring part of national memory? The Unfinished Bombing debuted in October , just weeks after the September 11, , terror attacks. As swiftly as the public eye had focused on extreme right movements after the Oklahoma City bombing, it now dropped them after September The government, law enforcement and the media all rushed to grapple with the issue of Islamic extremism.
Of that, there is no question. It was as if the collective consciousness could only contemplate one terrorist threat at a time, rather than the multiple threats that the nation usually faces. Moreover, the shift was not temporary but seemingly permanent. The result of this shift is that the significance of the Oklahoma City bombing, particularly in terms of its service as a warning of the dangers of domestic extremist movements, became somewhat truncated.
The September 11 attacks in effect created two types of significance for the bombing: the importance that the bombing has actually had over the past 20 years and the importance that it could have had over these past years. After all, it is not as if right-wing extremism disappeared after September The history of right-wing extremism from to the present day has been one of a steady stream of plots, conspiracies, terrorist acts, and hate crimes.
The recent history of extremist violence in the United States has in most respects been dominated by right-wing extremists.
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