The Oklahoma City Bomber Called the Children Victims ‘Collateral Damage’—See How Many People Died in the Attack
On the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, Netflix released a new documentary called Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror. The film recounts details of the terrorist attack and resurfaced interviews with the suspect, Timothy McVeigh.
McVeigh was a Gulf War veteran who became radicalized by anti-government beliefs and hoped to spark a revolution against the federal government with the bombing. He was arrested shortly after and indicted on 160 state offenses and 11 federal offenses, which included the use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was found guilty on all counts in 1997 and sentenced to death. Terry Nichols, an associate of McVeigh’s, surrendered in Herington, Kansas, and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
The Oklahoma City Bombing still has a pervasive effect to this day, shocking locals and state officials.
How many people died in the Oklahoma City bombing?
The Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people. On the morning of April 19, 1995, a forty-eight-hundred-pound ammonium nitrate–fuel oil bomb exploded in a Ryder truck parked at the north entrance of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. More than 680 people were injured. It’s the largest domestic terrorist attack in United States history.
According to the Oklahoma governor’s office, approximately thirty children were orphaned, 219 children lost at least one parent, 462 people were left homeless, and seven thousand people lost their workplace. A makeshift morgue helped identify the 168 victims on the day of the attack. A majority of the casualties came from the building’s collapse rather than the actual explosion itself.
How many children died in the Oklahoma City bombing?
19 of the 168 people who died in the bombing were children. 15 of the children were inside the America’s Kids Day Care Center in the Federal building.
In an exclusive interview with Timothy McVeigh, he told ABC News that he had no remorse for the attack, even if children were killed. “If I had known there was an entire day-care center, it might have given me pause to switch targets. That’s a large amount of collateral damage,” McVeigh said.
However, FBI Agent Danny Defenbaugh said that the building had visible signs of a daycare.”No matter what … if you look at the building, you’re going to see all the little cut-out hands, all the little apples and flowers showing that there’s a kindergarten there — that there are children in that building,” Defenbaugh told CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti.
One of the youngest survivors of the attack, PJ Allen was 18 months old when the attack happened. Only 6 children survived. ““(My grandmother) saw a baby wrapped in bandages and the only thing that was exposed was my belly button,” said Allen to the Tinker Air Force Base. “That was all she needed; she immediately knew it was me. Sure enough, it was me and luckily, I had been taken to the hospital and given care that I needed to survive.”
