Waco Siege - Related Incidents

Related Incidents

Other events sharing the date of the gas attack on Mt. Carmel have been mentioned in discussions of the Waco siege. Some of the connections appear coincidental. April 19 was the date from the American Revolution of "the shot heard round the world". It was also the date of opening of the siege on the CSAL group in Arkansas in 1985.

In March 1993, Timothy McVeigh drove from Arizona to Waco in order to observe firsthand the federal standoff. Along with other protesters, he was photographed by the FBI. McVeigh cited the Waco incident as a primary motivation for the Oklahoma City bombing, his truck bomb attack against the federal buliding in Oklahoma City. The bombing was a terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, a U.S. government office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. McVeigh testified that he chose this date because it was the second anniversary of the deadly fire at Mount Carmel. McVeigh's attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 injured. Until the September 11 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history. Within days after the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both in custody for their roles in the bombing. Investigators determined that McVeigh and Nichols were sympathizers of an anti-government militia movement and that their motive was to avenge the government's handling of the Waco siege and Ruby Ridge incidents. However, McVeigh had never been a member of any militia group and he was only assumed to be a sympathizer due to his anti-government sentiments.