Watch trailer for Netflix’s ‘Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror’
Netflix’s documentary ‘Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror’ arrives on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy. See the exclusive trailer.
Netflix is commemorating the 30th anniversary of one of the gravest days in our nation’s history with its upcoming documentary “Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror.”
USA TODAY can exclusively reveal a trailer for the moving 82-minute film, streaming April 18. It chronicles what was then considered the worst act of American domestic terror and the resilience of the capital city and those affected by the 168 lives lost. On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove a large rented truck containing a 4,800-pound bomb to the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, where several federal agencies including the Secret Service and Army and Marine recruitment had offices employing hundreds. A daycare center also operated on the property.
McVeigh, an Army veteran who served during the Persian Gulf War, explained his motives for the anti-government attack in a letter published by The Guardian. “Foremost the bombing was a retaliatory strike; a counter attack for the cumulative raids (and subsequent violence and damage) that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Waco),” McVeigh wrote, referencing the fatal standoff between law enforcement and cult leader David Koresh exactly two years before the Oklahoma City bombing.
At 9:02 on that fateful spring morning, the bomb exploded, causing one-third of the Federal Building to crumble.
“I remember we were having breakfast,” Dr. Carl Spengler, who assisted in triage care, says in the preview, “and then there was this explosion that kind of rocked us out of our table.”
“The whole front of the Federal Building is gone,” a voice describing the emergency says. “All floors to the roof.”
Filmmakers reconstruct the events of that morning and the days that followed with people on site during the tragedy and law enforcement officers desperate to solve the case.
“I thought maybe I was dead,” remembers survivor Amy Downs, who worked in the building. “I realized I was buried alive.”
The preview touches on the rage lodged at callous McVeigh. A child smiles while holding a cardboard sign that reads, “Oklahoma justice hang the sucker.” A woman interviewed at the time declared to the camera, “I think they should let him loose out front and let everybody have at him.”
“Everybody that has somebody in the building,” Renee Moore, whose son attended daycare at the Federal Building, begins in the trailer, “we have to live with this.” Her pain, marked by tears, is a stark contrast to McVeigh. He can be heard saying coldly, “Am I remorseful? No.”
It’s the same alarming attitude that USA TODAY reporter Kevin Johnson experienced in a 1996 meeting with McVeigh, who was executed in 2001. “His self-absorption, against the backdrop of such enormous loss, was particularly striking,” Johnson wrote. “It remained a constant theme throughout the session.”
Leave a Reply