Feds on Oklahoma City bombing: never again

OKLAHOMA CITY — Federal officials are resolved never to allow a terrorist attack like the Oklahoma City bombing happen again, Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Caitlin Durkovich told survivors and loved ones of the 168 people killed in the April 19, 1995, bombing on Friday.

“What happened here in Oklahoma still rests heavy in our hearts. … What transpired here 29 years ago remains the deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in U.S. history,” Durkovich said in front of a field of 168 bronze chairs, each engraved with the name of a bombing victim, at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.

“Our collective resolve to never let this happen is how we bear witness to the memory and the legacy of those who were killed and those who survived” the bombing, Durkovich told the crowd of more than 100 people as a woman in the crowd wiped tears from her face.

The nearly hour-and-a-half-long ceremony began with 168 seconds of silence for each of those killed and ended with the reading of the names of each of the victims.

Durkovich was joined by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt for the ceremony on a partly sunny, cool and windy morning for the 29th anniversary of the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building downtown.

“This is a place where Americans killed Americans,” and the lessons learned after the bombing should be used to address the “political vitriol” of today, Holt said.

Hatred of the federal government motivated former Army soldier Timothy McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols to commit the attack.