American Experience (1988) s29e06 Episode Script

1
WOMAN:
whether to approve or deny
the application.
They're the decision-makers.
And you will receive a copy
of my proposed recommendation
and can attend
that board meeting
and present your information
directly to them.
With regard to this proceeding,
basically,
there are four elements
that I have to
Receive information regarding
(explosion roaring)
Everybody,
let's get out of here.
Now!
Watch the electricity line!
REPORTER:
All that I can see,
it looks like part
of the building
has been blown away.
We'll have to bank
around the other side
so I can get a better view
of it.
The explosion, though,
went off around 9 a.m.,
and we could feel the explosion
in the newsroom of Channel 9
at least
five miles from downtown.
ANCHOR:
As the chopper goes around the
side of the Federal Building
REPORTER:
Jeez, wow!
ANCHOR:
Look at that shot.
It is absolutely incredible.
The side of the Federal Building
has been blown off.
Jesse?
REPORTER:
About a third
About a third of the
building has been blown away.
This is just devastating.
MAN:
That morning,
I was not in my office.
I was at a fundraiser
about 30 miles away.
We had a 9:00 start,
when all of a sudden,
my phone went off,
and I was told that there'd been
some type of an explosion
at the Murrah Building.
The greatest fear I have
is that we have casualties
in the thousands.
At any one time, there could be
a couple of thousand people
in that building.
MAN:
I was assigned to the Oklahoma
City police tactical team
at the time.
And we immediately started
working our way
towards the building.
There were several vehicles
on the north side of the
building in a parking lot,
and all of them were burning.
The black smoke
was billowing up.
When I walked up there,
there was a hole in the ground
about the size
of a swimming pool
that looked like about 30 feet
in diameter
and about seven,
eight feet deep.
Just a big hole in the ground.
That's when it started
really sinking in,
this had to be
some kind of bomb.
WOMAN:
When I first got there,
I could see people trapped
on different floors,
and they needed to be rescued.
And so I started my way
into the building.
I thought to myself,
"Why Oklahoma City?
"It's a quiet place.
"Nothing happens here.
It's not supposed
to happen here."
WOMAN:
Yeah, we'd always had threats.
You tell somebody,
"I'm sorry, but," you know,
"your claim's denied,"
or whatever,
and, yeah, and we'd get threats,
but not
Not anything that we ever
considered, you know, viable.
There has been
a massive explosion
at a federal building
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
It happened
just a short time ago.
A large portion of that building
has collapsed
and fallen away from the rest
of the building.
At the moment, we don't have
any specific numbers
on injuries or deaths,
but we can tell you that the
situation is obviously serious.
WOMAN:
I tried to put the building
back in my mind,
of, where would he be?
If I have to dig for my son,
where should I dig?
And so, that's what I did.
I visualized the first floor,
the second floor,
the childcare was here,
his crib would be here,
and that's where I wanted
to get to.
As I started to climb up
the debris and the rubble,
I remember a man yelling,
"You can't go up there,
it's too dangerous!"
And I remember telling him,
"Our babies are in there!
Our babies are in there!"
I just kept saying,
"Our babies are in there."
WOMAN:
When I saw the building
for the first time,
I just couldn't see
how anybody could have survived
any of that.
So at that point,
I think my mind was thinking,
"My kids are gone."
MAN:
I drove down there
and met Claudia.
We walked up to a perimeter
and I asked a officer, I said,
"We have two, two babies
in the daycare center.
Can I, can I go in?"
OFFICER (in distance):
Move back, move back, move back.
Move back, move back.
JIM DENNY:
I could see people
that are covered
with blankets, towels, whatever,
that are gone.
And I'm praying that one of them
is not a small child.
MAN:
I knew a lot of the people
in the building.
I knew the D.E.A. agents
that were in the building,
I knew the ATF agents
that were in the building,
and those people
were friends of mine.
I could not believe
what had happened to all of them
and how this could be.
How could somebody get
to that state in their life
where they could be
so angry and upset
that they would do something
like this?
MAN:
Who started the war?
And who was the aggressor?
That's how I look
at the Murrah bombing.
To me, it wasn't a start
of a war,
it was a counterattack.
The war had already been
started.
You guys think
you can be ruthless?
Let's see how you like it
when the
when the fight
is brought to you.
If you continue with shit
like Ruby Ridge and Waco,
this is what's going to happen.
MAN:
Northern Idaho.
It's a remote place, it's
a predominantly white place,
and it's the kind of place
where everybody sort of minds
their own business.
In the 1980s, a lot of extremist
groups found a sanctuary there.
White power!
MAN:
What do we need?
ALL:
White power!
MAN:
One of those groups
was the Aryan Nations.
MAN:
The Aryan Nations had
established itself
in Hayden Lake as a sort
of headquarters of hate,
radical right-wing hate.
MAN:
We the white race lost the war.
A plague known as Jews
won the war,
infiltrated our bloodstream
of our race
in every country
in which we reside.
MAN:
Richard Butler, like many
far-right people at the time,
held that the federal government
was in the hands of the Jews.
And the only way to save America
was to assert
your Christian sovereignty,
your white Christian
sovereignty.
BUTLER:
Every major city in the United
States is now non-white,
following the catastrophic
destruction of our race
in the so-called Civil War,
or the War Between the States.
America shall again become
white and Christian.
There'll be a lot of blood
running one day.
I don't advocate it,
I don't want it.
But it's going to come
as sure as day follows night
and night follows day.
MAN:
In the 1980s, in America,
the white race was becoming
the minority race.
Racist groups used that
as a calling card.
"Come join us,
because the white race
is going to be driven
to extinction."
MAN:
The Aryan Nations
attracted people
from all walks of life
who were, who were white,
all of them looking for someone
to blame for the situation.
And they focused their anger
on the federal government.
People like Robert Mathews.
MORLIN:
Robert Mathews showed up
at the Aryan Nations
in the early 1980s.
And there, he met
other young men like him,
who thought
that it was just talk.
It was no action.
Bob Mathews said,
"The time has come for action."
You Jews get the heck
out of here!
I didn't come all the way
down here to hear you!
Go over there!
The words of Jesus Christ
MAN:
Bob Mathews wanted to start
a revolution.
He saw the United States
government
as a complete and utter enemy,
run by Satanic Jews,
that had to be destroyed.
MORLIN:
He had 12 or so other followers,
most of whom he had met
at the Aryan Nations,
and they decided
that they would basically
declare war on the U.S.
MAN:
As Bob Mathews was formulating
a plan for his organization,
he discovered a book
called The Turner Diaries,
written by a racist
named William Pierce.
It was a fictional account
of a group of patriots
that came together
in a very small number,
much like what Bob was planning
to do,
and overthrow
the United States government.
And as Bob read this,
he thought, "This is us.
This is the plan
we need to follow."
MAN:
"Unit 8 will secure a large
quantity of explosives,
"between five and ten tons.
"We will then drive
"into the FBI building's
freight receiving area,
set the fuse,
and leave the truck."
POTOK:
The Turner Diaries culminates
with these anti-government
resisters
blowing up the FBI headquarters
in Washington, D.C.
It had this electrifying,
energizing effect
on all kinds of people
on the radical right.
MAN:
The Order is a small group,
but a very formidable group,
and they start robbing banks,
armored cars,
kill whoever they had to kill.
They didn't care.
MANIS:
Their expertise grew
week by week and month by month.
This was an organization
that had taken real form
and had real leadership
and direction.
And then they formed
an assassination squad
to go to Denver.
RADIO ANNOUNCER:
You're listening to Alan Berg
on KOA.
You never shut up!
I got fed up with you!
You never let me get a word
edgewise get out of here!
POTOK:
The Jewish talk show host
Alan Berg
had angered the radical right
by essentially mocking them
on his radio show.
If you're not a Christian,
you're un-American.
Is that your point, sir?
MAN:
That's right!
Good point, sir!
NOBLE:
He spoke out
against the right wing
and the Christian Patriot
movement,
yeah, and members
of The Order got fed up.
LEVITAS:
Alan Berg was shot to death
in the driveway of his home.
It was essentially
domestic terrorism.
It was born-and-bred Americans
inspired by racism,
anti-Semitism,
and anti-government ideology.
MANIS:
The FBI really didn't know
who these individuals were.
But a great break happened
for us
when Bob Mathews decided
they're going to take down
a Brinks truck that's carrying
multiples of millions
of dollars.
So they do.
A very brazen daylight robbery
right out on a highway.
They take this thing down.
Bob Mathews is in there,
he's clearing out money,
and his pistol falls out
of his waistband.
And we get that pistol.
MORLIN:
They convince some members
of The Order to surrender.
But Mathews wouldn't surrender.
And after a two-
or three-day standoff,
the FBI moves in on the cabin
and a gunfight occurs.
MANIS:
I'm just a little ways
from the house,
and the bullets are hitting
right at the trees
and the brush line where I'm at.
You know, he's got plenty
of weapons,
he's got thousands of rounds
of ammunition.
He was committed.
MAN:
The next evening,
it was starting to get dark,
so we put in
some illumination rounds,
and those rounds,
one of them or so, caught fire,
and the building started
to burn.
MANIS:
And then it was
like firecrackers,
just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,
going off everywhere,
with the cooking-off
of the rounds.
At daybreak, I walked up
to the remains of the house
and saw a charred body there.
NOBLE:
Mathews' death forced
the movement, everybody,
to look at themselves:
"Am I really ready and willing
to die for the cause?"
MANIS:
The FBI was on high alert.
I mean, domestic terrorism now
was top order.
And there was a massive amount
of investigation and arrests
throughout the United States.
MORLIN:
By the mid-'80s,
the federal agencies had
the lesson of The Order,
so they knew some of the folks
that had come out
of the Aryan Nations
were doing bad things
They were committing crimes,
they were killing people.
So the Feds were interested in,
who's there,
and what are they doing,
and what are they planning
on doing next?
LEVITAS:
Randy Weaver was a person
with white separatist beliefs
who moved his family from Iowa
to Boundary County, Idaho,
to a place called Ruby Ridge.
MORLIN:
They were 50 miles or so
from the Canadian border.
They had no electricity,
no running water,
no indoor plumbing.
We're talking about a cabin
made by Randy Weaver
and his wife
on a mountaintop.
These are people that want
to be left alone.
WALTER:
The Weavers were deeply
religious
and they wanted to live
in a style
they believed
was Old Testament Christian.
They were really imagining
this fortress,
this place where they could
really separate themselves
from a corrupt
and dangerous world.
MAN:
I don't know
that Randy Weaver knew
at the time that they moved
to Ruby Ridge
that they would be so close
to the Aryan Nations compound,
which was just 60 miles south.
But they started showing up.
At first, it was purely social.
They attended family picnics,
those kinds of things.
But as Randy began
to interact more with them,
he bought into the message,
the anti-government message.
BUTLER:
A movement is growing
all over the world.
Good men are coming forth,
men with iron wills
who are determined that their
race is not going to die
and become extinct.
MORLIN:
By the time Randy Weaver started
showing up at the Aryan Nations,
it was just after
the whole Matthews episode.
And, unfortunately
for Randy Weaver,
the Feds were listening.
LEVITAS:
They had lots of events there
designed to potentially recruit
harder-core folks
into the compound,
and it was at one
of those meetings
that Randy Weaver was spotted by
an undercover federal informant.
MORLIN:
This guy got next
to Randy Weaver
and learned that he was,
you know, clearly a racist,
that he wanted to live
his white separatist lifestyle
in North Idaho,
but that he was having trouble
putting two nickels together,
and that he was interested
in some income.
And one thing led to another,
and pretty soon, Randy Weaver
agrees to saw off some shotguns.
NOBLE:
In my opinion, the ATF pretty
much entrapped him
into making these shotguns
illegal
by cutting off
too much of the barrel,
and then comes out and wants
to arrest him over it.
MORLIN:
They figured,
"If we arrest this guy
"on federal firearms charges,
"maybe he can lead us
to other people
that are doing
more dastardly things."
They did think Randy Weaver
could be flipped.
BOTTING:
So they asked him to be
an informant,
which he immediately refused.
Randy Weaver didn't trust
the government
and was absolutely
not interested
in being an informant.
However, he failed to appear
for his next court appearance.
WALTER:
Once you don't show up
for trial,
the case is assigned
to the U.S. Marshals Service.
And the U.S. Marshals Service
doesn't know
whether or not
Randy Weaver was entrapped
or how those shotguns
came about.
They just know
they have a fugitive.
BOTTING:
The marshals brought in
their special surveillance team
and they kind of
skunked around the property
trying to find a location
to take him into custody
without a problem.
MAN:
Well, this is the approach
from the east.
MORLIN:
One of the things
that they decided to do
was to have motion-activated
cameras
placed near the Weaver cabin.
The tapes showed
that Randy Weaver was there
with his wife and his children
and a man named Kevin Harris,
and that they frequently
were armed.
They have to have been
shaking their heads.
"What are we going to do?
"We go up there,
and he's going to shoot at us,
and we're going to shoot back."
BOTTING:
On the day of the shooting,
the marshals had a six-man team
they divided into two elements,
and one element of three went up
on the mountain
to have a visual on the cabin
itself.
The other element was on the
ground, closer to the cabin,
when the Weavers' dog caught
the scent of the marshals
and went after them.
All we know at that point was,
there was a shootout.
MORLIN:
Who shot who first
is still subject
to, you know, interpretation,
but when it was all said
and done,
14-year-old Sammy Weaver's dead,
the dog's dead,
and so is Federal Marshal
William Degan,
killed on the property
of a white separatist.
The FBI had every reason
to think,
when they're dealing
with Randy Weaver,
they could be dealing
with another Bob Mathews.
WALTER:
Because they believe that they
are deploying into a firefight
with a group
of armed separatists
very much like The Order,
the rationale is given
that a surrender warning
doesn't need to be called out,
that that warning
has already been given,
so agents can open fire as soon
as they see any armed adult.
Well, the Weavers
are always armed.
BOTTING:
I got there and there were
trucks and jeeps
and all kinds of vehicles,
you know,
even armored personnel carriers.
It was just overwhelming
how much was happening
and how many people
were involved.
MORLIN:
Where we were,
at the roadblock,
it was out of view
of where this base operation
was occurring.
But there were, you know,
an assortment
of law enforcement people
going across this little bridge.
Neighbors and friends
of Randy Weaver
and reporters
from all over the country
started gathering there,
trying to get information.
If we can tell you something,
we will,
but most of it will all come out
of Washington, D.C.
MORLIN:
We were down
a good two miles or so
from where the actual cabin was.
So we had no clue
as to what the FBI had in mind.
WALTER:
As morning dawns on Ruby Ridge,
a team of ten FBI agents
surround the cabin.
These are snipers who've been
trained to, you know,
to hit a dime from 200 meters.
Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris,
and Sara Weaver
decide they're going to go out
and check on Sam Weaver's body.
They make their way out
with their weapons to the shed
where Samuel has been taken
by the family,
when a shot rings out.
Randy is hit in the shoulder.
They run back to the house
and another shot rings out.
This shot goes through the door,
hits Vicki Weaver in the face,
splinters,
and wounds Kevin Harris,
and drops Vicki dead
to the floor.
MORLIN:
When word came down that Sammy
and Vicki Weaver were dead,
the crowd at the roadblock,
which numbered 50, to 100,
to 200 on occasion,
went crazy.
(protesters yelling)
MAN:
You call yourself an American?
These are Americans!
These are God-fearing people!
You don't even know
your Constitution.
Go back and read
what your founding fathers said.
POTOK:
The events at Ruby Ridge lit up
the radical right.
Here was a government that would
murder men, women, and children
in order to pursue whatever
their ends were.
Baby killers!
Baby killers!
POTOK:
The roadblock became
a gathering point
for skinheads,
for Aryan Nations members,
for all kinds of people,
you know,
furiously shaking their fists
at the Zionist-occupied
government.
You're a disgrace
to the white race!
MAN:
Disgrace to the race!
This was the first time
the movement had gathered
in such a fashion,
this publicly.
It became a political event
of its own.
These were people who saw
themselves in Randy Weaver.
You look at what happened
and how many times it could have
been averted and avoided.
The idea that the far right had
at that moment
that the government was
a very dangerous entity,
this case would seem to prove it
as completely as possible.
MAN:
Mr. Weaver, do you have anything
to say?
ZESKIND:
Ruby Ridge, more even than
Robert Mathews and The Order,
became a central calling card
and rallying card
for the far right.
For them, the government
was after Weaver's guns
and his religion.
And guns and religion became
the twin pillars
of the white supremacist
movement.
MORLIN:
In late summer, 1992,
after Ruby Ridge,
several members
of the extremist movement
saw that as an opportune moment
to sort of gather everybody
together
and, "Let's raise hell
about this."
One race, one folk, one nation,
one people, one homeland!
We're going to have it!
LEVITAS:
Louis Beam, former grand dragon
of the Ku Klux Klan, said,
now is the time for you
as an individual
to commit overt acts
of anti-government violence.
Essentially,
anybody representative
of government or law enforcement
was a fair and reasonable
target.
NOBLE:
The government is an enemy
of the people.
And in this war,
it's an, it's an all-or-nothing,
you know.
We're either going to win
as the white race
or we're going to lose.
MAN (on radio):
602 to Operations.
The water is shutoff
to the federal building.
At this time,
the water is shutoff.
(sirens blaring)
MAN:
Probably about 10:00
in the morning,
I got a call at the hospital.
There's a lady who's trapped,
and the only way
that we're going to be able
to extricate her
and save her life
is to amputate her leg.
So I got an amputation set,
I got some nylon rope,
and away I went.
When I got to the building,
it was surreal.
There were a lot
of first responders there
who had pretty well
set things up
so they could take somebody away
the minute that they found them.
And then I was led
into the basement.
FLOWERS:
We could hear people screaming.
We could hear them screaming,
we could hear them crying.
You just couldn't see them
because it was so dark.
When they fired up these lights,
you could see the floors
had fallen on top of each other
and created, like, a dungeon
underneath the Murrah Building.
Everywhere you look
in this floor
that you could see,
there were these round circles
of coagulated blood
that were coming
through the cracks of the floor.
These circles were three
and four feet in diameter,
and they're everywhere,
seemed like everywhere,
and you knew that that was
a person that had been crushed.
SULLIVAN:
They led me to where Daina
was trapped.
There was a first responder
with his hand on the beam
that had her leg trapped.
And if it trembled or moved,
we were told we had to go.
The beam was lying on her leg,
her tibia, just below the knee.
Basically, to do the amputation,
I had to lie with my legs
up by her head.
And so I took the traction rope
and tightened it down
so that I had a tourniquet.
And then, you know, it's kind
of like diving into ice water.
I had to start.
MAN:
Get back!
Go, go!
Get them back!
POTOK:
Just as I got
to where the barricade was,
this incredible scare went
through the crowd.
Get your stuff back now!
Someone was yelling they thought
they had discovered a second
bomb: "Get back, get back!"
MAN:
We've got a hot device
get them back!
FLOWERS:
They start screaming at us.
"Get out of this building, we
have just found another device!"
And of course,
everybody's heart sinks,
because we've got people
still alive in here.
WOMAN:
I was on the eighth floor.
My eyes were
in pretty bad shape.
Two of my friends
worked their way over to me,
and said, "We've got to get out
of here."
I was praying, I was saying,
"Lord, don't let there be
any more bombs."
RICKS:
It turns out that it was not
a real device.
It had been a mockup
for one of the agencies there.
But we were still telling
people, you know,
that we couldn't guarantee
their safety
as they went in there.
FLOWERS:
I remember seeing that team
down there
working on that girl
to amputate that leg.
Everybody's screaming at them,
"Get out of there!
Get out of there,
the bomb's going to"
And they would not leave,
they would not leave her.
SULLIVAN:
I don't remember how many times
I thought I had completed
the amputation.
We would try to extract Daina
and she was still caught.
I reached a point where
all of the blades were broken
and there was nothing else
to do,
but I had in my pocket
a pocketknife
that I keep very sharp.
The thing that was
keeping us from extracting her
was the quadriceps tendon,
and once I cut through that,
then I could kind of get a sense
that the leg was free
and we were able to extract her.
MAN (on radio):
We have two critical patients.
I have one patient that needs
immediate transport
SCHWAB:
When I got out of the building,
I sat on the curb
waiting for an ambulance.
I couldn't see anything,
but I could hear people yelling,
people screaming,
sirens in the background.
And I thought,
"What crazy person did this?
Who has come in here and done
this terrible thing?"
The bombing in Oklahoma City
was an attack
on innocent children
and defenseless citizens.
It was an act of cowardice
and it was evil.
Let there be no room for doubt,
we will find the people
who did this.
RICKS:
The bombing
of the Murrah Building
was the largest domestic
terrorist event
that had ever occurred
in the United States.
We probably had
close to 500 investigators
that were here in Oklahoma City.
We had forensic teams,
bomb squad teams,
evidence response teams,
all kinds of experts,
looking for clues.
MAN:
This becomes one of the biggest
criminal investigations
in American history.
Every police agency
in the country
is in some way trying
to track down leads,
because at the very first,
they had no idea who did it.
(phone rings)
FBI Hotline.
RICKS:
We have had hundreds,
if not thousands of leads.
Each one of those is treated
very seriously.
But at this point,
we cannot speculate
with regard
to who is responsible.
We ended up with leads
in literally every state,
as well as many
foreign countries.
Whenever you have
a mass catastrophe,
such as the Murrah bombing,
the assumption is always,
"You've got to have
this great conspiracy.
There've got to be
multiple people involved."
And we operated
under that assumption, as well.
We were getting calls, even
just after the bombing happened.
We were getting reports
by the thousands,
that, "I saw this, I saw that."
Then we started getting calls
over the radio
about Middle Easterners.
"Start looking
for Middle Easterners."
There has yet been no claim of
responsibility for this bombing,
although if you talk
to intelligence sources
and to law enforcement
officials,
they all say
in their early guess
in this situation
is that this particular bombing
probably has roots
in the Middle East.
A U.S. government source
has told CBS News
that it has Middle East
terrorism written all over it.
WOMAN:
I started making phone calls,
trying to find out
what was going on
and very quickly found out
that the Feds went
and raided an apartment
in Dallas
that was occupied
by some Middle Eastern guys.
But then someone I spoke to
said,
"Do you know what day it is?"
I said, you know, "What?"
I had been off work
for a couple of days,
and so, you know,
wasn't paying attention
to the calendar that closely.
And someone said,
"It's April 19."
Immediately it hit me.
This is about Waco.
You know, this is about Waco.
Give me that old-time religion
It's good enough for me!
WRIGHT:
The Branch Davidians
had been in Texas
for over 50 years
by the time that most people
outside of Waco
had ever heard of them.
They were an offshoot
of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church.
They found a place just outside
of Waco, called it Mt. Carmel,
and set up this community.
In the late '80s,
a young Davidian
named Vernon Howell
had a revelation
that God had chosen him
to be their leader.
He changed his name
to David Koresh
and began preaching
his vision of Armageddon
out of the Book of Revelation.
"So how's God going to talk
to me in the latter days?"
AUDIENCE:
It's going to be written.
And who's going to bring
that book?
(audience mumbles answer)
So there'll be no excuses!
HANCOCK:
In about May of 1992,
the sheriff's department in Waco
got a report
from a U.P.S. truck driver
about a shipment going
to Mt. Carmel.
There was a box that fell apart,
and some pineapple grenade hulls
came out of the box.
That's what prompted
the beginning
of the ATF investigation.
MAN:
That investigation was able
to determine
that they were illegally
converting automatic weapons
in there,
that they had purchased
about $43,000 worth of firearms
during the year prior to it,
and members of the community
out there
had heard automatic weapons fire
and explosions
coming from the compound.
HANCOCK:
Koresh preached increasingly
that they were going to be met
with an opposing force.
So when we start getting
into the subject
of the Seven Seals,
looks like somebody's
going to get
a butt-whuppin'
in the near future,
aren't they?
HANCOCK:
He believed that the government
was going to try to invade
this sacred ground
that was Mt. Carmel.
And so, this actually would be
where Armageddon takes place.
BUFORD:
People in ATF felt
that if this Armageddon that
he predicted didn't come true,
he was going to have to do
something to prompt it.
So we decided that we needed
to act as quickly as possible.
HANCOCK:
Reporters for the Waco
Tribune-Herald
had really good sources
in local law enforcement,
and they had been tipped
about when the raid
was going to go down.
This road's going to be
closed soon.
HANCOCK:
The morning of the raid,
a reporter was sent
to the compound,
and he's driving around
trying to figure out
where he is,
when here comes
a Buick station wagon,
stops, rolls down the window,
says, "Hey, buddy,
are you lost?"
He says, "Yeah, I'm looking
for Mt. Carmel.
There's going to be a big raid."
Turns out that the guy
in the car
is one of the inner circle
of Koresh's followers.
He immediately goes
and tells Koresh
what was happening.
That morning,
David said
that we had information
that there was going
to be a raid today.
The men were arming themselves
and the women were told
to go back to their rooms
and bunker down.
BUFORD:
We were going to be confronting
150 people
on a very large compound.
They had 45 minutes
to prepare for us
and began firing on us
as soon as we got there.
I heard an M60 machine gun
being fired.
Then I heard the A.K.-47s.
And then I heard
the 50-calibers,
just a brutal, brutal weapon.
(gunfire banging and popping)
There's no doubt these people
were trying to kill us.
(gunfire continuing)
The firefight went on
for 2 1/2 hours.
And when they finally agreed
to a ceasefire,
we were able to get our people
and get out.
MAN:
Yeah, this is Lynch.
KORESH:
Hey, Lynch?
LYNCH:
Yeah.
KORESH:
That's kind of
a funny name there.
Now, listen, now
LYNCH:
Now, who am I speaking with?
KORESH:
This is David Koresh.
LYNCH:
Okay, David.
KORESH:
The notorious.
What'd you guys do that for?
LYNCH:
Well, David, what, this,
what I'm doing is,
I'm trying to establish some
communication links with you.
KORESH:
No, no, no, no, no.
Let me tell you something.
LYNCH:
Yes, sir.
KORESH:
You see, you brought
a bunch of guys out here
and you killed
some of my children.
We told you we wanted to talk.
How come you guys had
to be ATF agents?
How come you try to be so big
all the time?
LYNCH:
Okay, David
KORESH:
Now there's a bunch
of us dead.
There's a bunch
of you guys dead.
Now, now that's your fault.
LYNCH:
Okay, let's, let's try
to resolve this now.
Tell me this,
now, you have casualties.
How many casualties?
Do you want to try
to work something out?
ATF is pulling back,
we're trying to, uh
KORESH:
Why didn't you do that first?
HANCOCK:
By the end of this shootout,
four ATF agents were dead,
more than a dozen were wounded.
And inside, five Davidians
were dead
and David Koresh was wounded.
MAN:
Okay, then, move out.
BUFORD:
There really wasn't much
organization as to how we left.
The three team leaders,
all of us,
were wounded very badly.
I was actually put in a blanket
and placed on the hood of a car,
and, uh
I don't remember anything about
the the trip out, actually.
HANCOCK:
American law enforcement had
never seen anything like this.
They had never had
this kind of loss.
They had never been met
with this kind of resistance.
There was shock,
there was anger,
and there was uncertainty.
REPORTER:
Tragedy tonight in Waco, Texas.
At least four federal agents
and a member of a cult group
are dead after an hour-long
gun battle at the cult's ranch.
14 other agents were
wounded in the shootout
that started when law officers
tried to enter the compound.
MAN (over loudspeaker):
David Koresh, pick up
the phone.
The negotiators
want to speak with you.
RICKS:
The tactic
from the very beginning
was trying to negotiate
a resolution.
We were willing to spend
as long as possible
to try to get the people out.
And particularly,
we would focus on the children,
trying to get the children
out of there.
MAN:
And starting off the evening
of the 28th of February,
we were successful.
We were starting
to get kids out.
But we couldn't fathom
how in the world
these parents were so latched
onto David
that they would abandon
their children.
We took videotapes of them
playing on the,
on the swing set,
and eating ice cream,
and just communing
with one another,
and we sent them back
into the compound.
We wanted
to do something tangible
so their parents could think,
you know,
"Maybe I need to come out
and reassume my responsibility
as a parent."
(kids greeting their parents)
SCHROEDER:
I didn't decide
to send my kids out.
My kids leaving
was part of the prophecy.
I didn't know when it was going
to happen,
but I knew it would happen.
They weren't David's children.
MAN:
He let children go
up until there were
no children left in there
except his children.
And he told us,
"This is the last one.
The rest are mine."
HANCOCK:
The negotiators needed
a different way
to approach the situation.
And so it was proposed to Koresh
that he make a recording
that could be broadcast
to bring his message
to the world,
if he would agree
to lead his people out.
Koresh agreed to do this.
Okay, here we go.
We're going to the tape
of David Koresh.
KORESH:
It's March 2, 1993.
My name is Dave Koresh.
I'm speaking to you
from Mt. Carmel Center.
In the Book of Revelation,
commentary states
that what John has written
in Scripture
is nothing other than
the revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave to Him
to show to His servants
things which must shortly
come to pass
HANCOCK:
They're bringing in buses.
They're bringing in
all sorts of people
who are going to help process
the folks
coming out of the compound.
They were convinced
that he was going to come out.
RICKS:
We were at such a high level,
thinking that this thing
was going to end.
We were high-fiving each other,
then all of a sudden,
everything just stopped.
We were told that David received
a message from God
telling them to wait.
SAGE:
You went back on your word.
KORESH:
That is a lie!
SAGE:
That is not a lie.
KORESH:
That is a lie!
You will find out
in the Judgment
SAGE:
You know as well as I do
that your challenge
to open these Seven Seals,
it's garbage, it's a false
hope, and you know this.
KORESH:
No, it's not.
HANCOCK:
Once he didn't come out,
the FBI's tactics pretty quickly
became aggressive.
The power was cut.
They blasted lights
at the compound.
They had brought in tanks,
so they drove
over Koresh's prized cars.
They also set up loudspeakers
and they began blasting
Nancy Sinatra's "These
Boots Are Made for Walking."
One of these days these boots
are gonna walk all over you. ♪
HANCOCK:
Christmas carols,
the sounds of dying rabbits,
phones off the hook,
and even Tibetan monk chants.
It was clear
that the FBI was saying,
"Hey, we're going to show you
who's boss."
REPORTER:
The standoff outside
the Branch Davidian compound
has become a psychological
power struggle.
Now, sources tell CBS News
that federal agents don't plan
to let this go on indefinitely,
their frustration level
is very high,
and if negotiations
are not more fruitful,
they may take action
by this weekend.
Dan?
RICKS:
The story kept growing
and growing.
And the press initially
was very supportive
of what we were doing,
and very understanding,
but as the days went on,
they started becoming
more demanding.
They were saying, "After all,
they've killed four ATF agents.
Why are you just sitting back
and letting them do this?"
We are not going
to be jerked around.
We will take whatever action
is necessary to get it resolved.
And again, our ultimate goal
from day one
is to get it resolved
peacefully.
It was probably the number-one
story in the United States,
and many of the right-wing
Patriot types
started showing up, as well.
They thought this was
only about seizing guns,
about ATF attacking a church
because they believed
in possessing guns.
They didn't manage to get
into the press conferences,
but somebody else did.
HANCOCK:
Louis Beam, the white
supremacist
and former Klan leader,
showed up and presented himself
as a credentialed reporter.
Are we seeing the emergence
of a police state
in The United States?
We figured out who he was
pretty quickly.
He'd previously been on the
FBI's top ten most wanted list.
And I asked them if they're
going to have a police state,
and, uh, they don't want
to hear about police state,
ATF black-booted, black-suited,
black-helmeted troopers
carrying guns,
assaulting people.
Mr. Beam?
Let me see this
ZESKIND:
White supremacists, like Beam,
saw in this standoff
the same issues that they
had decided were important
with Randy Weaver.
The Branch Davidians
were not white supremacists.
But now a broader section
of the far right
sees itself in Waco, and says,
"We're being suppressed
for our beliefs and our guns."
Up to the top of the hill,
them two white
Little white buildings up there.
HANCOCK:
There was a hill that was about
three miles from Mt. Carmel.
It was on a rise
that was high enough
that you could just barely see
Mt. Carmel in the distance.
This was as close
as members of the public
could get to the standoff.
WOMAN:
You're next, you're next!
Wake up and understand!
You're next!
HANCOCK:
All sorts of folks felt moved
to come down
to see what was going on
at Waco.
Just, just arrived today.
Just, somebody told me
a lot of people are scared
to put something on,
you know, like this.
HANCOCK:
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.
HERBECK:
Tim McVeigh loved guns.
When he was a kid,
his grandfather taught him
all about guns:
the safe handling of guns
and the rights of gun owners.
They would go out
and shoot together,
go to target practice.
He just loved guns,
and the whole belief
about a man owning guns.
MAN:
Pendleton, New York,
was white suburbia.
It's near Buffalo.
It's where generations
of the McVeigh family had lived.
Growing up,
Tim loved superheroes.
He had a huge comic book
collection,
he liked Soldier of Fortune
magazine,
and he hated bullies.
Tim was very skinny and tall,
and in high school, he was known
as "Noodle" McVeigh.
That was the beginning
of a lifelong hatred of bullies.
HERBECK:
After high school,
he went into the Army.
He just couldn't seem to
find the right path to a career.
But the other reason
was he loved guns.
It gave him access
to all kinds of guns
and other weapons and he was
like a kid in a candy store.
MCVEIGH:
I was an admitted gun enthusiast
and so you can't go wrong
both brushing up your skills
and, hell, the Army
is free ammunition.
So I wanted to get out
and experience
the rest of the world.
I wanted to get out of my
isolation of Pendleton.
MICHEL:
The Army provided Tim McVeigh
with a place where he fit in.
He was the top gun at Fort Riley
in his Bradley fighting vehicle.
His supervisors took
notice of him.
He was a leader in the Army.
And then he goes over to Iraq
for the first Gulf War.
HERBECK:
It was in the war that McVeigh
first started
to become disillusioned
with the military
and the United States
government.
When he killed Iraqi soldiers,
he didn't feel the exhilaration
that he thought he would.
POTOK:
He took a very, very long
sniper shot
and killed an Iraqi soldier.
And he describes seeing
this man's head explode.
And he could not see
the reason for it.
He could not really understand
what the United States
was doing there.
MCVEIGH: My overall experience
in the Gulf War
taught me that these people were
just that, they were people.
They were human beings
at the core,
they were no different than me.
Then I had to reconcile that
with the fact
that, well, I killed them.
MICHEL:
He's truly conflicted.
He sees the American government
as a bully.
But they summon him home for
ranger school, special forces.
And he was willing to put aside
his anti-government views
in order to become, you know,
the ultimate soldier.
But he's not in top-notch
physical shape
and, to his embarrassment,
washes out of rangers school.
And the disillusionment
compounds itself.
He stayed around the Army
for a few more months,
but his heart just
wasn't in it anymore.
He went back home and
he thought it would be easy
to get a good job because
of his Army experience,
but he found that it wasn't.
Failure was eating at him.
He told us that "I feel like I
reached a pinnacle in the Army
and then after that everything
was just mediocrity."
BEN FENWICK:
He becomes more and more
disaffected.
He becomes more and
more strident.
He began paying attention to the
really far-off conspiracies,
like that the United Nations
was going to take over
the United States, and he
totally bought into them.
And he also
becomes very influenced
by The Turner Diaries.
He becomes just gripped
by this novel.
HERBECK:
He was really interested
in this character, Earl Turner,
and his antigovernment views
and his feeling that you needed
to take drastic action
to make the government
take notice.
And then Ruby Ridge happened.
And Ruby Ridge absolutely
enraged McVeigh.
He felt it was murder.
He felt it was all about
attacking the rights of people
to own guns.
POTOK:
He was not happy.
He wasn't getting along
with his family.
He didn't have a girlfriend.
He took his old beat-up car and
essentially began an odyssey,
traveling around the western
parts of the country,
kind of absorbing more and
more and more of this ideology.
And probably the single
most important place
where ideas of the radical right
were spread were gun shows.
LEVITAS:
Gun shows were sometimes more
than just gun shows.
The antigovernment message,
which cloaked itself
in the paraphernalia
of patriotism,
was promoted and peddled
at gun shows all over.
ZESKIND:
There were a number of people
who traveled from gun
show to gun show,
selling and trading,
and Timothy McVeigh
became one of these people.
And in the process
he met white supremacists
and talked to them.
He sold The Turner Diaries.
He became embroiled
in the larger movement.
MICHEL:
And then he shows up at Waco.
He can't believe it,
that, you know,
American citizens are being held
there by government agents.
And it rivets his attention.
MCVEIGH:
Who were the aggressors?
Koresh wasn't giving in,
that's true,
but the FBI were the aggressors,
okay?
Everything they do exudes
that they are at war.
They're a military force at war.
The thing is,
who are they at war with?
Well, they're at war
with the American people.
In Waco, Texas,
the 40th day of the siege
at David Koresh's compound
is ending
just like the other 39
With Koresh and his followers
on the inside,
and federal agents outside
waiting for something to happen.
MAN:
David Koresh, pick up the phone.
The negotiators want to speak
with you.
SAGE:
As the negotiations continued,
the productivity of those
negotiations diminished,
mainly, I think, because David
was done sending out the people
that he intended to send out.
KAT SCHROEDER:
Those of us that left were
leaving because
we were not good for the group.
We were not going to help
the group ascend.
So we were kicked out.
The last person came out of that
compound on the 21st of March.
The last child came out
the 5th of March.
We were in a very difficult
situation.
You know, you guys, you guys,
you do it your way,
I do it my way.
You're going to argue with me,
you catch me on the side
of the road somewhere,
and you come and argue with me.
You come pointing guns
in the direction of my wives
and my kids, dammit, I'll meet
you at the door any time.
Nobody's fooled here.
We're not negotiating, okay?
That's over, if it ever existed.
We weren't accomplishing
anything.
We were just in a situation
that all it could do
was grow worse.
HANCOCK:
More and more people within
the bureau began to come around
to the idea that they needed
to do something
to force Koresh's hand.
So the FBI went to the attorney
general, Janet Reno, with a plan
to use armored vehicles
to knock holes into the building
and spray in tear gas.
Initially she refused it.
She asked for more information.
So the FBI went back
with testimony
from former Davidians
of child sexual abuse
going on in Mt. Carmel.
And she saw the videotape
evidence of these young girls
with these babies,
and it confirmed to her
that this was going on.
At that point,
Janet Reno approved the plan.
STEVE SCHNEIDER:
Everybody grab your mask.
Everybody grab your mask.
SAGE:
A number of times early on,
we had gotten court-authorized
permission
to insert microphones
into that building.
That morning,
we couldn't hear anything live
because there was too much
noise, too much ambient noise.
But once the tapes are scrubbed,
someone clearly says,
"Put on your masks."
Shortly after that,
you distinctly hear
orders to spread the fuel.
SAGE:
All the while our guys
were inserting tear gas,
they were spreading fuel.
All morning long.
JAMAR:
Had we heard that,
"Spread the fuel,"
we would have pulled back.
We would have pulled away.
And then, of course,
what happened,
it was just devastating
to everybody.
As you can see on your screen,
there is a great deal of smoke
coming out from the building.
Let's go to Mike Capps
we can also see some flames
there now.
Mike, what can you tell us?
What can you see?
MIKE CAPPS:
Well, Bonnie,
for the last 15 minutes,
we've watched this M60 vehicle,
this combat engineering vehicle,
make large holes in the side
of this building
and pump tear gas in there.
Now we have a very large-scale
fire breaking out
on what must be the south side,
right near the front side
of this building.
POTOK:
I went out to the roadblock,
and was looking through
a friend's television camera,
and noticed little tiny
licks of flame,
first out of one side
of the building,
then out of the other.
And in a matter of
it seemed like seconds,
the building was engulfed.
You know, we all stood there
waiting to see
the people come out.
You know, there were 80 or 90
people in there.
SAGE:
As that fire continued to build,
a few adults came out.
One of them had jumped out of
the second floor window,
and then she ran back
into the fire.
An agent started to run after
her, went into the building,
grabbed her, and pulled her out,
and she was ready to ignite.
I mean, there was smoke
trailing off of her clothes.
Nine adults came out.
Not one of them
brought a child out.
JAMAR:
The part that we played
cannot be ignored.
We provoked the circumstances,
but David Koresh decided
who was going to die.
What happened was to serve
his purpose,
and that's the most
devastating thing to me,
is I served his purpose
to a terrible degree.
BUFORD:
When I saw the fire,
all I could think about
were the children in there.
You know, the parents had made
their own decisions,
but those kids didn't make
any decisions.
I literally bawled
when I saw it.
It was Armageddon,
just like he said it would be.
WRIGHT:
At Ruby Ridge, Americans saw
the deaths of two people.
But at Waco,
they saw massive deaths.
There were people who had
a legitimate argument
that there were all kinds
of mistakes made
and this could have ended
very differently.
But other people were saying
this was a government massacre
on a scale
nobody had seen before.
It was certainly framed
in this manner by the far right,
and the reaction
was almost immediate.
We have several witnesses
that say that they saw
25 to 30 people exiting out
these double doors
to escape the fire, and that
these people were gunned down
in cold blood
as they tried to escape.
There were several films made
by people on the radical right,
which claimed that this had been
a deliberate murder.
HANCOCK:
One of the
earliest was a documentary
called Waco: The Big Lie.
The crucial footage
that they used
was footage on the day
of the fire,
where they alleged that
if you looked at the footage
the right way,
that you could see
the tanks actually setting fire
to the building.
ARCHIVAL NARRATOR:
At the same time as fire
was already breaking out
in the back of the house,
as you just saw,
as this tank backs out,
flame can be seen
shooting from the front of it.
When someone could
package the footage
that had disturbed
everybody in America
with a potent message about,
you know, government atrocities,
it touched a chord.
You know, those who had a
tendency to doubt the government
were enraged.
HERBECK:
When the fire started at Waco,
Tim McVeigh was at a friend's
farmhouse up in Michigan.
He was working on a vehicle
out in the yard
and somebody yelled out,
"Tim, come in here.
You've got to see this on
television."
MCVEIGH:
I'm watching flames
lick out windows,
and I'm watching
tanks ram walls,
and my eyes just welled up
in tears,
and tears started
coming down my cheeks
as I'm watching
this scene unfold.
I'm not going to shy away from
the word rage.
For me, I felt absolute rage.
HERBECK:
For Tim McVeigh,
it was all happening
because of the U.S. government,
the biggest bully in the world.
(applause)
And just a few months later,
the Brady Bill passes.
It has a ban on several assault
weapons, long overdue.
HERBECK:
Like many people, Tim McVeigh
was convinced
that the Brady Bill meant
that the government
was going to take guns away
from law-abiding citizens.
A ban on handgun ownership
and restrictions on possession
of handguns by minors,
the beginning of reform
of our federal firearms
licensing systems.
(applause)
LEVITAS:
The combination of the perceived
government assassination
of the Weaver family,
the perceived military
government murdering
its own citizens in Waco,
and then the Brady Bill,
the government coming after
your guns,
just exploded the recruitment
of anti-government extremists.
We have a government
that is on the verge
of being completely out
of control.
They allow tyrants to come in
with hooded masks on,
unidentified,
bust down your door.
It's happened all over America.
PHIL DONAHUE:
This is the new thing
in America.
It's called the militia.
No, they say they're not racist.
It's not just about guns
and possession of guns,
but the 2nd Amendment's
involved here, definitely.
They're proud of
their 2nd amendment.
And by God no constable is going
to come from some faraway place
and break their door down.
They'll shoot 'em first.
ZESKIND:
There had been a spurt of growth
in militia organizations
after Ruby Ridge.
But Waco, and the Brady Bill,
accelerates the movement.
By the end of '93,
there was a huge underground of
armed white supremacist militias
all over the country,
all of them dedicated
to resistance
to the federal government.
HERBECK:
Tim McVeigh didn't actually
belong to a militia group
but he certainly
had the same opinions
about the government that many
of the militia groups had.
For Tim McVeigh,
it was all part of a massive
government conspiracy.
All these events,
they were all connected
and it was all leading down
a path that was going to end
with federal agents
coming to his home
and the homes of gun owners
all over America
and storming into those homes
and taking their guns away.
I think from that moment on,
he was trying to determine what
terrorist act to commit
against the U.S. government.
WILLIAM PIERCE:
"My day's work started a little
before 5:00 yesterday
"when I began helping Ed Sanders
mix heating oil
with the ammonium nitrate
fertilizer in unit 8's garage."
HERBECK:
Tim McVeigh had read
in The Turner Diaries
of how, generally, you
could build a truck bomb.
He found other articles
that told him exactly
how to build a truck bomb.
He wanted to do what
Earl Turner did:
take down a government building.
McVeigh truly believed that
he had two comrades in arms
in Terry Nichols
and Michael Fortier.
They go back to the Army.
They all like
The Turner Diaries.
They all shared the same
antigovernment thoughts.
They all wanted to show
that somebody could attack
the U.S. government,
that it was that vulnerable.
To get started, they knew that
they needed the main ingredient,
which was fertilizer.
POTOK:
They start to buy bag after bag
after bag of ammonium nitrate.
Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols
break into a storage shed
at a quarry and they steal
these explosive Tovex sausages,
which will make the bomb
more powerful.
HERBECK:
It wasn't easy to get
some of this stuff.
Some of the explosives
were not available
to the average citizen.
They spent months and months
getting the parts
of this bomb together.
Fortier's role was
very, very limited.
Nichols had a bigger role,
but, really, just following
orders from McVeigh.
POTOK:
And then, Tim McVeigh
manages to get
some 55-gallon drums of
nitromethane racing fuel.
The bomb that was depicted
in The Turner Diaries
was ammonium nitrate
and fuel oil.
McVeigh was going to amp up his
bomb really dramatically
by using this much, much
more volatile fuel.
HERBECK:
During this time
that he was driving around
getting his materials
for the bomb,
McVeigh was basically on this
anti-government odyssey.
He visited a militia compound,
he visited Area 51 in Roswell,
and he visited Waco.
FENWICK:
It was very important to him
to go bear witness
to what had happened,
to make himself feel that-that
place and that moment.
It was also around this time
that he and Fortier and Nichols
began selecting
what was going to be the target
of their bomb.
WRIGHT:
They went to Little Rock,
Arkansas.
They went to Tulsa.
They went to Dallas.
They picked the Murrah Building
in Oklahoma City, in part,
because the ATF,
who had conducted the raid
on the Branch Davidians,
had an office in the building.
They thought it was
appropriately symbolic
that they would go after
somebody
who was directly connected
to Waco.
FENWICK:
The Murrah Building
had numerous federal offices.
It had HUD, it had the ATF.
It had general accounting
offices.
It had military recruiters,
the Social Security
Administration,
the DEA was in there.
And there is some question
as to whether or not
McVeigh knew there was
a day care in there,
but he also kind of indicated
that it wouldn't have made
the difference anyway.
Michael Fortier began feeling
uneasy about doing this.
He suddenly visualized
what was going to happen.
He points out that there were
probably going to be
innocent people inside
that are going to die.
WRIGHT:
McVeigh told him,
"There has to be a body count."
He said, "The government's not
going to sit up and take notice
unless there's a body count."
"They can always build
a new building,
but a body count
will get their attention."
MCVEIGH:
From a military perspective,
to get a message across,
you need to hurt them
where they hurt the most.
The only way they're going
to feel something,
and the only way they're going
to get the message
is with a body count.
MICHEL:
Tim picks April 19
for the bombing
because it will be the
anniversary of the fire at Waco.
On Easter Sunday,
three days before,
Tim McVeigh calls Terry Nichols
and says it's time.
HERBECK:
He and Nichols, separately,
drove from Kansas
to Oklahoma City.
McVeigh took his $300
getaway car
and stashed it in a little
parking lot.
He put a sign in the window,
"Please Do Not Tow,"
and then they
drove back to Kansas.
The next day McVeigh goes alone,
apparently,
to rent a truck
in Junction City,
the big Ryder truck
that he will use as a bomb.
HERSLEY:
They asked him:
"Do you need insurance on it?"
He said, "No, I won't need
any insurance."
And they said,
"Do you need any extra days?"
And he answered, "No,
I won't need any extra days."
We actually have him on video
coming in to the McDonald's
about a mile away from
where he picked up the truck.
HERBECK:
April 18 was bomb making day.
McVeigh drove the truck out
to Geary Lake State Park,
where they would assemble
the bomb.
He was extremely upset
because Nichols was starting
to get cold feet.
He threatened to kill Nichols
and his family
if Nichols refused to help him
with the final preparations.
MCVEIGH:
The bomb was primarily assembled
by myself,
with a little assistance
from another,
who was under duress
to assist me.
I was the one that primed
the charges,
that crimped the caps to
the fuse, primed each barrel,
made sure there was
redundant fusing systems.
And it only took three hours.
FENWICK:
After they get the bomb built,
Terry Nichols made it very clear
he was not going to join McVeigh
the morning of the bombing.
And so they said goodbye, shook
hands, Nichols wishes him luck,
and then he gets in the truck
and he drives south.
HERBECK:
He was nervous as he drove
into Oklahoma City,
but I don't think
he ever second-guessed himself.
I don't think he ever thought
for a minute
that this was the wrong thing
to do.
When he got close
to the building,
he pulled the truck over,
and lit two different fuses
leading back to the bomb.
HERSLEY:
The last video that
we have of him was at 8:57
in front of the
Regency Tower Apartments.
At that point in time,
he was about
a block and a half
west of the Murrah Building.
NORFLEET:
As I was driving past,
I noticed this yellow
Ryder truck
pull into in the loading zone
in front of the building.
A young man got
out of the truck.
He had a military haircut
and the T-shirt, and I thought,
"Well, okay, that's a sergeant
or something
"checking into the command.
"But what in the world
is he doing
going away from the building?"
MCVEIGH:
I walked very slowly
toward the YMCA.
Once I got in the blind alley
of the YMCA,
I did jog because I knew
nobody was looking.
(explosion)
FLOWERS:
Later that morning,
we went into the south side
of the building, not knowing
what we were fixing to walk
into was the daycare center.
The granite floor was
all busted and broken
and just, you know,
going every which way.
And as I'm fixing to go in,
one of the Oklahoma City
officers comes walking out
carrying a little boy.
It's where the elevators
used to be!
I can't.
Let me have him.
I can't.
FLOWERS:
And I just turned
and took a second breath and
went into the daycare center.
We were moving debris,
we were picking up boulders.
Literally everyone was digging
on their hands and knees,
trying to get to these kids.
(siren wailing)
GARRETT:
The children were coming out
one by one.
Brandon was severely injured.
So was Nekia.
Rebecca, um, just seemed to me,
and I
it just seemed as though
she was just dipped in blood.
The next baby
that they brought out,
they went to lay
this baby on the ground.
They had these perfectly folded
white sheets
and they would bring
another one out,
and they would bring another
one, and another one.
And they lay them in a line,
wrapped in these sheets.
And then a nurse came,
and she moved the blanket
back from their feet,
and she was writing things, and
she tagged their little feet.
And I think that's
when reality, you know, set in,
that my son Tevin's
not coming home.
FLOWERS:
When a baby's body was carried
out of that building,
even though one person
carried that baby,
(voice breaking):
we all carried that baby.
And when we laid him down onto
that makeshift morgue
and lined those children up
out there,
that was really
a hard thing to see,
because that was all
of our kids.
That was everybody's kids.
That wasn't just
one person's child.
They belonged to everybody.
The emotions that we felt and
still feel to this day
from what we saw was
just remarkable.
And the kids that survived
and came through that
was just absolutely incredible.
JIM DENNY:
Our children ended up
at two different hospitals.
And once we found them,
we just made up our minds
that Claudia was gonna be
with Rebecca
and I was gonna be with Brandon.
(unintelligible conversation)
When I got there,
Brandon had just had
a four-and-a-half-hour
brain surgery.
How's Daddy's big boy, huh?
DENNY:
He had a piece of something
blown into the upper left side
of his head
that went into his brain.
Dr. Reynolds, his neurosurgeon,
could not tell us
whether he'd live or not.
We knew for an absolute fact
that our children
were 50 feet from it.
50 feet from a massive bomb.
There was five children
sitting at a table
in the daycare center,
and one in the bathroom.
And those six survived.
CLAUDIA DENNY:
When I saw Rebecca
for the first time,
the doctor said,
"She's going to be fine."
She has a lot of cuts, bruises,
and she has a broken collarbone.
But she was alive.
At 9:02 that day,
our world ended.
And then when we found our kids,
our new world began at 4:00
on April 19.
I love you, baby.
How you doing today, sir?
We're currently conducting
an investigation
into the Oklahoma City bombing.
Do you usually travel
this road very much?
RICKS:
We operate under the premise
that the evidence leads you
to where you want to go.
We have to gather every bit
of evidence that we can
and then start trying to form
hypotheses and theories
as to what has transpired.
Did you notice a Ryder truck?
The first real break
of the investigation,
which happened within hours
of the bombing,
was we found the rear axle
of what turned out
to be the bomb truck.
HERSLEY:
On the rear axle assembly,
there's what's called
a confidential vehicle
identification number,
which was PVA26077.
I'll never forget that number.
TONGATE:
We were able to trace that
number to a Ryder truck
assigned to Elliott's Body Shop
in Junction City, Kansas.
RICKS:
We immediately deployed
special agents
to that Ryder truck rental shop.
We learned that it had been
rented by a gentleman
with a South Dakota driver's
license
by the name of Robert Kling.
We had three principal witnesses
there inside the truck rental.
They described a military type
person, about six foot tall,
thin, close shaven.
They also believed that there
was a second person with him,
so we called these John Doe
number one
and John Doe number two.
Our agents flooded the area
of Junction City.
One particular agent went
to the Dreamland Motel,
and he asked the manager,
"Has anybody been in here
with a Ryder truck?"
TONGATE:
She said, "Yes.
"I had a customer who stayed
here in room 25
"that had a Ryder truck parked
at the motel,
and I last saw him on Tuesday
morning, April the 18th."
After talking to her
about the Ryder truck,
they show her the sketch,
and she recognizes it.
She pulls out her records,
and for all of McVeigh's
planning,
he apparently had a moment
of weakness
and he signed his own name
to the register.
HERSLEY:
So that really got us.
We wanted to know
who Tim McVeigh was.
So what we did
was go into the National Crime
Information Center
and run an offline search,
and try to find out if anybody
named Tim McVeigh
has been arrested anywhere
in the United States
in the recent past.
RICKS: It turns out
that a highway patrolman
has arrested someone by the name
of Timothy McVeigh.
HERBECK:
He was heading off toward Kansas
in this old Mercury Marquis.
He'd got on the interstate, and
a state trooper pulled him over
because he had no license plate
on the back of his car.
HANCOCK:
The trooper then notices a bulge
under the driver's jacket,
and says, "Is that a gun?"
The driver acknowledges,
"Yes, it is,"
and Tim McVeigh
is put under arrest
and taken to the county jail.
MICHEL:
The T-shirt he is wearing
says sic semper tyrannis
"thus ever to tyrants."
It was what John Wilkes Booth
shouted when he shot Lincoln.
For two days McVeigh languished
in the jail
and nobody really knew
who he was.
Other than the fact that he was
illegally carrying a weapon,
the police had no suspicions
about him.
RICKS:
We called up the courthouse
there and learned
that Timothy McVeigh was just
getting ready to appear
before the judge and was about
ready to be released.
So we said, you know,
"Put a hold on him.
We're on our way."
MICHEL:
Two federal agents interview him
in the Noble County
sheriff's office.
And the agents start by saying,
"Do you know why we're here?"
And McVeigh says,
"Does it have something to do
with the bombing?"
I am pleased to announce
that one of the individuals
believed to be responsible for
Wednesday's terrible attack
on the Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City
has been arrested.
FENWICK: Once they know
they've got their guy,
the decision's made to take
him to a more secure facility.
The word is leaked out
to the press,
which broadcasts it on TV,
so people drive there
from all over to see this.
(crowd shouting, booing)
POTOK:
I and the rest of the country
saw Timothy McVeigh
for the very first time.
And we understood
in a kind of flash
that there were enemies
within this country.
Not foreign terrorists,
but red-blooded Americans
who were engaged in a war
against America.
FENWICK:
It was just the lightning moment
of recognition.
This was the guy in the sketch.
It was that guy.
I think everybody felt this
sudden sense of betrayal.
I think everyone thought,
"You're one of us."
REPORTER:
Mr. President,
is there a sense now, sir, that
this was not a foreign threat?
Let me say that I have never,
and the Justice Department has
never said,
that it was a foreign threat,
but the most important thing
that you understand
is that even though this is
a positive development,
this investigation has a lot of
work still to be done in it.
RICKS:
The capture of Timothy McVeigh
really just launched
the investigation.
The circumstances, obviously,
indicated
that he was directly involved,
but, you know, to what extent?
His driver's license had an
address in Decker, Michigan.
We dispatched agents
to that location
and we find out
that the gentleman there
by the name of James Nichols
had a brother, Terry,
presently residing
in Herington, Kansas.
We ended up executing a search
warrant on Terry Nichols' home
in Kansas, and that search
warrant was a gold mine.
In there we found a receipt for
2,000 pounds of fertilizer.
We found a cordless drill
that turned out to be
a key piece of evidence.
But probably the most important
piece of evidence
that we found was a calling card
in the name of Daryl Bridges,
who shared the same
address in Decker, Michigan.
HERSLEY:
There were 685 calls
made on the calling card.
We determined where every one of
those calls was placed from,
the duration of the call,
and who the call was made to.
So we saw many calls to chemical
companies, to barrel companies,
to racetracks,
all kinds of places
Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols
were contacting
to try to acquire
bomb components.
We also found out about
Michael Fortier
through the calling card.
He knew more than we did
about the bombing.
He knew, for example,
that Tim McVeigh,
when he was staying at their
house in Kingman,
had taken all these soup cans
down from the kitchen
and showed Michael Fortier's
wife exactly how he was going
to construct the bomb inside
the back of that Ryder truck.
Last night, Timothy McVeigh
was charged in the bombing
of the Murrah Federal Building
here in Oklahoma City.
Two brothers, James Douglas
Nichols and Terry Lynn Nichols,
are currently in federal custody
and are being held
as material witnesses.
Another suspect,
whom we have identified
as John Doe number two, remains
unidentified and at large.
RICKS:
A mistake was made.
The artist conception has him
with a Carolina Panthers cap on.
It turns out that a guy had
happened to be
in the Ryder truck rental shop
the day before
Timothy McVeigh was.
His description is almost
to a T.
MCVEIGH:
Is there a John Doe two?
Either way I can answer it
should be scary
because, number one,
if there are other people,
that means they're still
out there.
On the other hand, if it was
just me, that in itself,
isn't that pretty scary
that one man could do that?
That's why "You can't handle the
truth" is the perfect line,
because the truth is
it was just me.
FENWICK:
The prosecution hit
McVeigh's defense team
with everything they had.
Michael Fortier's testimony
was crucial and damning,
but he also told
a very poignant story.
He talked about how he would
have a dream at night
that he was calling people
to warn them,
and then he'd wake up,
and he was in jail,
and he hadn't made the call,
and that people were dead
because of him.
I was the second witness
in the trial,
and as I sat in
that witness stand,
it seemed just like an arm's
reach away was Timothy McVeigh.
He did look me in the eyes,
and he did try to intimidate me,
but I was far
from being intimidated.
GARRETT:
When I had to testify,
and people would ask later,
"How did you sit in
the room with the man
who murdered your son?"
And I told them my story
is more powerful
than me yelling at him.
My story is more powerful
than my fist.
I'm not going to go
to his level.
You know, I deserve better;
Tevin deserved better.
Every victim of the bombing
deserved better than that.
McVeigh all along wanted
a necessity defense,
that he had no choice
but to bomb to building.
He did not want to claim
some widespread conspiracy,
which members of
the defense team wanted.
McVeigh wanted no part of that
because, number one,
it wasn't true
and, number two,
he did want credit
for this thing he had done.
And no evidence has ever
surfaced that anybody but him,
with-with a little bit of help
from his two Army buddies,
pulled this off.
He built this bomb.
He designed it, he built it,
and he was proud of that.
ZESKIND:
There was no massive conspiracy.
That much is clear.
But the idea that Timothy
McVeigh was a lone killer
is wrong-headed because it
absolves the movement
from which it all sprang.
Timothy McVeigh
was not on his own.
He was a creation of the
white supremacist movement.
He carried The Turner Diaries
around
and read it to people.
He lived at the gun shows.
He met Neo-Nazis
and visited with them.
He was part of this movement.
And the idea that
there was no connection
between the white supremacist
movement
and the events in Oklahoma City
is patently false.
There was a strong connection,
and it was a deep connection.
WRIGHT:
When the verdict was read,
McVeigh's demeanor
didn't change at all.
He didn't even blink.
I think he fully expected
to get the verdict
and he fully expected
to get the death penalty,
and he expected to die
because I think he
wanted to be a martyr.
FENWICK:
He thought he was starting
the next American Revolution.
I think he did
exactly the opposite,
because he showed the human face
of what it really
means to attack a government,
a government of the people.
SCHWAB:
We were the government.
We weren't bad guys.
We were mothers and fathers
and daughters and sons
and grandparents
who had a job to do.
Supposedly you don't have
job satisfaction
if you work for the government.
I never heard that type of talk
in our office.
We were very proud
of what we did.
MCVEIGH:
Death penalty is
would you call it an oxymoron?
Death is not a penalty,
it's an escape.
They treat me like a trophy,
like they've got me, they're
gonna kill me, "We've won."
They didn't win.
In the crudest terms: 168-1.
NORFLEET:
He died without a word.
There was no pain.
There was no regret.
Because I looked into his eyes
before they were closed
that last time,
and saw the same deep anger
and resentment and rage
that I had seen in that trial
several years before.
FLOWERS:
Justice was served.
That don't bring them back.
It just won't bring them back.
But it closes a door
on that chapter,
and that's exactly what happened
when they lowered the boom
down on Timothy McVeigh.
JIM DENNY:
We didn't go to the execution.
We had no time to worry
about that.
Our total focus, regardless
of whatever it took,
was our children.
Our children and our family.
CLAUDIA DENNY:
We were very blessed.
But it's been hard for us.
I mean to watch Brandon
struggle, as he's struggled,
for the last 20 years.
Faith, family, and friends
That's how we survived
through all of this.
But also it makes me
wonder why a little bit.
I mean, I don't question
it all the time,
but sometimes I question why.
And I do have a little bit
of the survivor guilt
that my children survived
and some of the others didn't.
(siren wailing)
GARRETT:
I still have hope that no one
ever again becomes so enraged
with hatred and prejudice
and judgment
that they think the only thing
to do is to kill
and harm other people.
I have hope that through
all of this
that love is stronger
than any terrorist attack.
I have hope that that would
never happen again.