Netflix’s documentary Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror recounts the ᴅᴇᴀᴅliest act of domestic terrorism in US history. It pieces together the true story of what happened on April 19, 1995, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, combining news footage with the testimonies of those at the scene and the law enforcement officers in charge of finding the perpetrators of the attack. Moreover, audio reenactments of interviews with the main perpetrator himself are played in snippets over footage of the bombing’s aftermath, adding to the sense that this documentary is an authoritative account of events.

At around 9.00am on the day in question, an explosion ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in the downtown area of Oklahoma City, the capital and largest city of the American state of Oklahoma. At the time, the building housed 550 employees working for the regional branch of various US government agencies, as well as a daycare center for infant children. The huge death toll resulting from this event, and the depraved motivation behind it, make Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror one of the most darkly disturbing documentaries streaming today.

Timothy McVeigh Targeted The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building With A Bomb In Oklahoma City On April 19, 1995

McVeigh’s Rented Truck Loaded With Explosives Blew Up The Front Of The Building

The explosion that hit the federal building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, was a deliberate attack carried out by Timothy McVeigh, with the help of his accomplice Terry Nichols and the full knowledge of their friend Michael Fortier. In the days leading up to the event, McVeigh and Nichols built a bomb out of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane (ANNM), a chemical mixture used in industrial bomb production, along with diesel fuel. Nichols procured the materials in the form of crop fertilizers and pesticides (via Time).

According to the book American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, McVeigh brought the bomb to a drop-off zone in front of the daycare center of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in a delivery truck he’d hired under a false name. He lit the detonator fuses, parked up, left the truck and departed the scene in a getaway car he’d parked several blocks away, just as the bomb went off.

The explosion instantly tore through the entire front part of its target building. All of its nine stories collapsed into one another, leaving the section of the building that was hit completely flattened. The presence of diesel fuel in the bomb created a gigantic fireball that emitted a plume of thick, black smoke.

How Many People Died In The Oklahoma City Bombing Explosion

There Were 168 Fatalities In Total, Including 19 Children

In the minutes following the explosion, shellshocked employees and children emerged from the building covered in blood, many of whom had incurred severe or even fatal injuries. In total, 168 people were killed in the Oklahoma City Bombing, and at least 684 were injured.

Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror shows real video footage from the scene in the immediate aftermath of the bomb, alongside the emotional recollections of Carl Spengler, a doctor who was treating patients at the scene. Spengler recalls in the documentary that only one child initially came out of the building alive. In fact, only six children survived the bombing, while 19 were killed, including 15 from the daycare center (via Washington Post).

Many of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ or injured remained trapped under the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building during the initial minutes and hours after the explosion. Among those trapped was Amy Downs, a Credit Union clerk whose remarkable story of survival is a key element of Netflix’s Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror. She was pulled from underneath several feet of rubble by the Oklahoma City Fire Brigade more than two hours after the bomb went off, with a large gash on her leg and minor skin lacerations her only injuries.

How Much Damage Was Done To Oklahoma’s City Federal Building & The Surrounding Area

It’s Estimated That The Bomb Caused $652 million In Material Damage

While the human cost of the bombing was the most horrifying consequence of this act of terror, the damage done to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and neighboring structures was also considerable. The federal building had to be demolished in May 1995, and a police report recorded 324 other buildings as well as 86 cars were destroyed and damaged by the bomb fallout, which shattered the glᴀss of most windows within four blocks of the explosion, according to Internet Archive.

All in all, the bombing caused an estimated $652 million in damage (via The Oklahoman), and made several hundred people homeless due to its impact on residential buildings in the area surrounding the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The documentary Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror doesn’t really address these aspects of the story, focusing instead on the primary victims of the bombing itself, the emergency response to the attack, and the identification of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols as its perpetrators.

Why Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols Carried Out The Oklahoma City Bombing

They Wanted To Incite An Uprising Against The Federal Government

As the documentary explains, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier knew one another from their time serving together in the US Army. They all harbored anti-government sentiments ᴀssociated with the far-right, and identified with the American neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce, whose book The Turner Diaries served as the direct inspiration for the Oklahoma City Bombing.

April 19, 1995, was chosen as the date for the bombing because it was the second anniversary of the attack’s other primary inspiration, the FBI’s armed siege of Mount Carmel Center outside Waco, Texas. This siege resulted in the deaths of 76 civilians, including at least 20 children. Mount Carmel was the center of the Davidian religious cult, which was attacked by the FBI for stockpiling weapons in preparation for an apocalyptic event, and refusing to comply with the agency’s demand that they turn themselves in.

The FBI’s use of bombs and grenade launchers in their siege likely caused the fire that engulfed the center, burning many of its inhabitants alive. Their actions enraged members of the American far-right, and radicalized thousands of people who believed the Davidians were simply exercising their right to bear arms according to the Second Amendment to the US Consтιтution by stockpiling guns at Mount Carmel. McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier were among those radicalized against the federal government by this event.

McVeigh and Nichols decided to channel the anti-government sentiments stoked up by the Waco siege into committing an act of terror at a government building. They informed Fortier of their plan to build a bomb and blow up a federal office, an action taken straight from the plot of The Turner Diaries. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was apparently chosen because it housed regional branches of the American Secret Service and the ATF, the country’s national firearms regulator.

The bombers hoped that their actions would incite a mᴀss revolt against the federal government, or, at the very least, federal law enforcement agencies. McVeigh even suggested afterwards that his actions had changed government policy for the better (via American Terror).

What Happened To Everyone Responsible For The Oklahoma City Bombing

McVeigh Was Sentenced To Death, While Nichols Is Serving Out Consecutive Life Sentences

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was arrested by the FBI within two days of the terror attack, as they managed to track him down to a courthouse in the state where he happened to be standing trial for misdemeanor offenses. Meanwhile, Terry Nichols turned himself in to police on April 21, the same day that McVeigh was taken into federal custody.

Soon after, Michael Fortier and his wife, Lori, were arrested in Arizona. They were considered accomplices to the crime, as they admitted knowing about McVeigh and Nichols’ plan before it was carried out, but did nothing to stop it. However, Michael Fortier accepted a plea deal for a lighter sentence and immunity for Lori, in exchange for testifying against McVeigh and Nichols.

As we read in postscripts at the end of Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of murder and conspiracy in 1997, and sentenced to death. He was executed on June 11, 2001, by lethal injection, with the families of many victims of the bombings in attendance. Terry Nichols was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2004, and is currently serving 161 consecutive life sentences. Michael Forner served eight years of a 12-year sentence, and now lives under the witness protection program.

Source: Time; American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & the Oklahoma City Bombing; Washington Post; Oklahoma City Police Department Alfred P. Murrah Building Bombing After Action Report; The Oklahoman