Car Bomb Shreds Federal Building in Oklahoma City; 31 Dead, 300 Missing : Terrorism: Attack in America's heartland claims the lives of 12 children who were at a day-care center. Clinton, fighting tears, calls bombers 'evil cowards.'

By JESSE KATZ and LIANNE HART

April 20, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

OKLAHOMA CITY — A thundering, half-ton car bomb blew away nearly half of a nine-story federal building Wednesday in downtown Oklahoma City, killing at least 19 adults and 12 children, leaving 300 people missing and stabbing icy terror into the American heartland.

One 15-year-old girl was saved after 13 hours under the tangled wreckage. But rescuers could see bodies on every floor, and they were certain the death toll would climb. One nurse said: “Children’s bodies were mangled and decapitated. There was lots of blood and debris.” Another said that “school papers and toys were strewn on the floor.”

The blast sent a red-orange fireball into the blue prairie sky and rocked the flatlands for 30 miles around. It threw a dirty black cloud of smoke and debris high into the air and hurled shards of glass in every direction around a ragged five-block circle. Cars in the streets nearby burst into flames and exploded. Men and women ran for their lives.

Rescuers, their faces ashen, brought most of the injured, bloody and battered--including children as young as 18 months old--to St. Anthony’s Hospital, which reported treating more than 200 people for cuts, burns and shattered bones. A nurse, bloodstained and crying, said: “I was shocked to think that someone could do that to small children.”

The FBI said it had hundreds of potential suspects. “A number of coincidences have occurred,” said spokesman Bob Ricks in Oklahoma City, without elaborating. “But to say that it was one particular group or one individual, we’re not anywhere near making a statement with regard to that. We have no indication with regard to group or with regard to reason.”

All of America was shocked.

* President Clinton, red-eyed and fighting tears, called the bombers “evil cowards” and asked people to pray for the victims. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno vowed to punish those responsible with death. Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said that if terrorists can strike in the safe and placid heart of America, then it is “an awful statement about the evil that lurks in the world.”

* Clinton ordered tighter security at government buildings everywhere. Bomb hoaxes forced the evacuation of federal employees in at least nine other buildings from Boston to California. Police at the U.S. Capitol were alerted to look for any possible bombs. The Secret Service added guards at the White House and began X-raying visitors’ lunch bags.

* Even before the smoke cleared, federal investigators began a search for tell-tale signs of ammonium nitrate and kerosene, critical ingredients in the explosive that damaged the World Trade Center in New York more than a year ago. They also focused on reports that three men were seen driving away from the federal building moments before the blast.

* Two groups denied speculation that they were involved. Dick Deguerin, an attorney representing the Branch Davidian religious sect, said that all remaining members were at a memorial service for those killed in the end to a standoff with federal agents two years ago to the day in Waco, Tex. And American Muslims asked the media to exercise restraint in reporting unsubstantiated accusations against them.

At nightfall, Oklahoma City was eerily reminiscent of Beirut in 1983, where the U.S. Embassy was car-bombed and 62 people were killed. In both cities, the faces of buildings were sheared off. All of central Oklahoma City was under curfew, and national guardsmen patrolled the streets like Beirut militia.

The terror here began at 9:04 a.m.

Hundreds of employees had reported for work at the Alfred P. Murrah Building, which houses offices of agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Social Security, Veterans Affairs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Housing and Urban Development, a federal employees credit union and military recruiting offices.

Many had dropped off their children at a day-care center on the second floor. Employees in other downtown offices had just brought their youngsters to day care at the YMCA nearby.

With a rumble like the wrath of God, a bomb--thought by some authorities to have been in a parked car near the front of the building--exploded and sent the entire north side of the structure crumbling to the ground.

The bomb was a large one, perhaps 1,000 to 1,200 pounds, said John Magaw, director of the ATF. Keating told reporters: “Obviously no amateur did this.” He added, bitterly: “Whoever did this was an animal.”

He said the FBI told him that they were looking for three people in a brown pickup truck. They appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, the governor said. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol issued an all-points bulletin for the trio. One was described as 25 to 30 years old and another between 35 and 38.

A police source who requested anonymity told the Associated Press that FBI agents were trying to piece together a van or truck that was believed to have carried the bomb. The AP reported that its source said an axle of the vehicle was found about two blocks from the scene.

“I dove under that table,” said Brian Espe, a state veterinarian who was giving a slide presentation on the fifth floor when the bomb exploded. “When I came out,” he told the AP, “I could see daylight if I looked north, and daylight if I looked west.”

People, some in their underwear because the blast had torn their clothing off, staggered, screaming, out of the building. They were covered with glass, plaster and blood. Many were in tears.

A nurse, Bobby Johnson, 42, was just getting off work at the South Park Medical Center, 4 1/2 miles away. He heard the explosion, then what sounded like another one, or perhaps an echo.

“Boom, boom, and the earth shook,” he said.

Johnson went home, turned on his TV, saw what had happened and drove to the scene.

“It was awful,” he said. “Children’s bodies were mangled and decapitated. There was lots of blood and debris.”

Another nurse, Rena Keesling, 28, made her way downtown.

Nearly half of the Murrah Building was gone, as if a nine-story bite had been taken out of its side. Cables and air ducts dangled from its bare ceilings and shattered bricks.

“I saw decapitated bodies,” she said. “Children were just all over. Their school papers and toys were strewn on the floor. One doctor picked up a group picture of the children and burst into tears. She couldn’t take it.”

Keesling said she saw a pair of women’s shoes standing alone, as if someone had been blown out of them.

Emergency workers tried to cover the bodies with blankets, she said, but the wind kept blowing them off.

Christine Johns, a nurse who was part of a team who collected the dead, said she had never in her entire career seen anything like this.

“Babies,” she said, “were wrapped around poles.”

A priest, Father George Miley, wearing purple vestments and carrying blood-covered latex gloves, arrived to minister to the dead and dying.

“They were all children,” he said. “Six babies.”

Parents and other relatives began to gather near the devastation, crying, shouting and searching for their children. Police Sgt. Bill Martin told the AP that of the 31 dead, at least 12 were youngsters. More than 20 more children were missing.

All had been in the day-care center at the Murrah Building, said Dr. Carl Spengler, an emergency room physician. He said the dead children ranged in age from 1 to 7 and that some were burned beyond recognition.

“I saw some of the faces of police officers bringing out those kids, and they were in complete shock,” Spengler said. “I saw them not able to look at the bodies of the kids they were holding.”

Kenneth (Sugar) Smith, a retired police officer, was less than two blocks from the blast. “It looked like a mustard-gas tornado,” he said. “Paper, dust, things swirling around. I didn’t know what to do. So I pulled out my old badge and started directing traffic.”

A woman rushed up.

“My baby!” she cried. “My baby’s in the day-care center.”

“Ma’am,” Smith replied, “I can’t let you go in there.”

But, the woman pleaded, “yesterday was her birthday.”

Rescuers began wading into the rubble with chain saws. Periodically they turned them off to listen for moaning, calls for help or other sounds of life. Most often, all they could hear was silence.

At one point, sheriff’s deputies told more than 75 doctors and nurses at a triage area nearby that anyone who was still inside had to be dead.

“We keep waiting and hoping,” said Yvette Cuinn, an emergency medical technician. She and the others stood in the gathering rain, their arms crossed.

Forty-five rescuers worked in teams of five. “We’ve got to believe we’ve got some survivors,” said Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen. “That’s what’s keeping the rescue workers going.

“We gotta hope for something.”

The rescue teams struggled from floor to floor. By afternoon, they had made it to all of them, but were able to make a thorough search of fewer than half. Much of the building was so savaged it was impassible.

The teams were joined by structural engineers, including some who had helped design the building. They moved slowly, fearful that parts of the rest of the torn wreckage might collapse and trap some of them, as well.

As evening approached, the teams counted 58 successful rescues.

One of those was credited to a team that included John Griffith, 45, a paramedic who found a woman buried in rubble that filled the basement. Only her right shoulder and the right side of her face were visible.

Griffith learned that her name was Amy and that she worked in the credit union on the third floor. This meant she had fallen four floors.

“Everything that you can imagine was on top of her,” Griffith said. “Door frames, computers, debris.”

He stayed with her for five hours.

“She asked if she was OK,” Griffith said. “I said, ‘You’re in great shape, your breathing is good, you have a good pulse. Right now you’re just having a bad hair day.’ ”

Finally, at 3 p.m., rescuers had cleared enough of the debris to move her. She had a bad cut on one leg.

The cut, Griffith said, appeared to be her only injury.

In another part of the rubble, Griffith saw a woman who did not fare so well. Her legs had to be amputated, he said, before rescuers could remove her.

“This is something that happens in a war zone--Lebanon, Beirut, Sarajevo--not in the American heartland,” Griffith said. “Take everything you’d expect to find in an office, throw it in a blender, run it for five minutes, then cough it out.

“It was total destruction.”

As darkness fell, it grew harder and harder to find anyone still living. Nine dogs trained to pick up human scent spent four hours going through the wreckage.

Karen Hardesty, a representative of Oklahoma Canine Search and Rescue--a nonprofit volunteer group that brought the dogs from Tulsa--said they sniffed out 40 to 50 people, but none of them were alive.

Hardesty’s dog, Lady, is a 3-year-old hound especially trained to find infants.

Babies smell different from adults, Hardesty said. “Lady is trained to find all humans, but looks harder and faster for babies.”

She did find one, Hardesty said.

But the baby was dead.

“It will hit me later,” Hardesty said. “I’ll get shaky, and I’ll cry.”

Rescuers brought in large lights so they could continue searching into the night. But growing rain presented a particular problem. Water would weigh down weaker parts of the building and add to the threat of collapse.

“As much as we like to rescue any survivors,” said Hansen, the assistant fire chief, “we’ve got to slow down and be very, very cautious.”

He said his men would have to crawl over corpses to get to anyone alive.

Still later, the stormy weather died down, but the work remained precarious. Rescuers were required to report to a stress center, where they were told what to expect and urged to return afterward to talk with counselors.

Gary Jenkins, a volunteer paramedic wearing a hospital tunic to his knees and a surgical mask up to the brim of his baseball cap, described the frustration of the search.

“There wasn’t much triage to provide,” he said. “For most of them (the victims), it was a little too late.”

He recounted what he saw in the wreckage: “Chaos, mayhem, unbelievable destruction, death, innocent victims, catastrophe.”

Jason Albertson, 20, a volunteer rescue worker, said the building looked like “it got whacked by a giant claw.”

“It’s hell in there,” he said. “You see chaos in the world every night on TV. Well, today it landed smack-dab in the middle of America’s heartland.

“It scares me.”

In a basement room at St. Anthony’s, the walls were lined with lists of victims who had been admitted with injuries. A steady stream of people passed, looking for family members and friends. Many realized that their worst fears were true.

Ken Violette, 37, and Susan Rapson, 38, searched the lists for Jaime Genver, a credit union employee. Both were in tears, bracing for the worst.

“If she were out of that building and able,” Rapson said, “she would have called.”

Janet Battle looked for the names of her parents, who had gone to the Murrah Building at 8:30 a.m. to handle some Social Security matters.

She said sadly that they wanted to be the first in line when the doors opened.

In Washington, the sadness of the tragedy affected Clinton visibly.

“The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens,” he said. “It was an act of cowardice, and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.”

In his statement, delivered personally in the White House briefing room, he added: “Let there be no room for doubt. We will find the people who did this. When we do, justice will be swift, certain and severe.”

Times staff writers Louis Sahagun in Oklahoma City, William C. Rempel and David Lauter in Washington and Bob Pool, Larry Stammer, J. Michael Kennedy and Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles also contributed to this story.

More Coverage

* PROBE BEGINS--Federal officials begin painstaking reconstruction of the crime and search for its perpetrators. A16

* BACKLASH FEAR--Muslim leaders denounce the bombing and brace for a flare-up of anti-Islamic sentiment in the nation. A17

* LOCAL TENSION--Security is increased amid phony bomb threats in the Southland. A19

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

FACT FILE: OKLAHOMA CITY

Population: 444,179

Size: 623 square miles (Los Angeles is 469 square miles)

Mayor: Ron Norick

Major industries: Petroleum, stockyards, Tinker Air Force Base

Ethnic breakdown: Whites, 75%; black, 16%; other, 9%

Single-family housing: $47,000 to $260,000

Unemployment rate: 5.1%

Median household income: $26,883

***

THE DAY-CARE CENTER

Background on the day-care center located on the building’s second floor, directly above the blast:

Center’s name: America’s Kids.

Enrollment: 41. Twenty-five of the children belonged to federal employees and the rest were from the local community.

Present Wednesday: An estimated 30 children were attending when the blast occured. Sign-in sheet was missing last Wednesday.

Ages: 4 months to 5 years.

Hours of operation: 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Cost: Fees ranged from $80 a week for infants to $65 a week for toddlers. No federal funds were used.

***

BOMBINGS AROUND THE WORLD IN 1995

April 9: An American and seven Israeli soldiers are killed in two bombings by Islamic militants on the Gaza Strip. More than 40 are wounded.

Feb. 27: A car bomb in a crowded bazaar in Iraq kills 94. Three Iraqi Kurds are arrested.

Jan. 30: A suicide bomber blows up a car laden with 200 pounds of explosives outside Algiers police station, killing 42 and wounding 286. Islamic extremists claim responsibility.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Inside the Building

More than 500 workers were assigned to the federal building in Oklahoma City. The building, constructed in 1974, featured the following types of offices:

FLOORS

1st) Social Security Administration, General Services Administration

2nd) Child-care center

3rd) General Accounting Office, Army, Health and Human Services, Credit Union, Defense Investigative Services

4th) Federal Highway Administration, Army recruiting, Army Reserve, snack bar

5th) Veterans Affairs, Labor, Federal Drug Administration, Housing and Urban Development, Customs

6th) Marines

7th) Drug Enforcement Administration

8th) Housing and Urban Development

9th) Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret Service

NUMBER OF WORKERS Housing and Urban Development: 177 Social Security: 65 General Accounting Office: 18 General Services Administration: 43 Drug Enforcement Administration: 24 Small Business Administration: 50 Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms: 20 Air Force: 50 Agriculture: 21 Customs: 10 Secret Service: 15 Veterans Affairs: 21 *

Building connects to others with a tunnel system

Six elevators in center of building

North side was mostly glass

Site of car bomb

Public entrances were on south and north sides

Source: General Services Administration