April 19 marks the 16th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. In memory of the lives lost in the explosion, here are some facts and figures concerning the bombing.
* Constructed in 1977, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City contained regional offices for the Secret Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); and other government agencies. The building was named in honor of Alfred P. Murrah, an Oklahoma native who served as chief judge on the Federal Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
* The explosion that destroyed the building occurred at 9:02 a.m. Surveillance camera footage from the adjacent Regency Towers shows a yellow Ryder truck parked near the federal building minutes before the blast.
* 168 people died as a result of the bombing, including 19 children, one rescue worker and eight federal law enforcement agents who were working in the building at the time. The truck bomb, weighing an estimated 4,000 pounds, was believed to be composed of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitomethane racing fuel and detonated by a blasting cap.
* After the bombing, Charles Hanger, an Oklahoma state trooper, arrested a driver in a yellow Mercury Marquis for driving without tags on Interstate 35. The driver, later identified as Timothy McVeigh, also was carrying a loaded .45 caliber Glock pistol inside his jacket. Dashboard footage from Hanger's vehicle showing the arrest was released to the media in 2008.
* Before he was released, federal authorities linked McVeigh to the Oklahoma City Bombing. Terry Nichols, a friend of McVeigh's, voluntarily surrendered to authorities on April 21, 1995. Both men were ultimately charged with conspiracy to bomb a federal building and murder of federal agents. A raid on a Michigan farm owned by Nichols and his brother James uncovered several materials, including ammonium nitrate.
* Authorities recovered an axle from the Ryder truck and, using the vehicle identification number, traced the truck back to a body shop in Junction City, Kan. During his 1997 federal trial in Denver , Eldon Elliott, owner of Elliot's Body Shop, identified McVeigh as the person who rented the Ryder truck days before the explosion.
* Surveillance footage from a nearby McDonald's restaurant also shows McVeigh buying a pie shortly before the truck was rented.
* On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. After a series of appeals, McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. Terry Nichols currently is serving a life sentence at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo.
* On May 24, 1995, employees of Controlled Demolition, Inc., placed approximately 150 pounds of explosives in 420 locations within the shell of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building . The resulting implosion brought the remaining structure down within 7 seconds. The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum now occupies that space.
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