Why the Oklahoma City bombing investigation still matters
Investigative reporter and author Andrew Gumbel knows all the ins and outs of the Oklahoma City bombing case.
In his book, "Oklahoma City: What the investigation missed and why it still matters," Gumbel and his co-author Roger Charles detail how a "fractious, over-timid federal law enforcement community blew chances to prevent the bombing and failed to follow several promising leads pointing to the broader involvement of the radical far right."
"The first 48 hours are invariably the most important," Gumbel says. "In 1995, the authorities did a great job of identifying and apprehending Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, but a lot of other things went wrong and a lot of golden opportunities to unravel the plot in its entirety were squandered."
Gumbel joins The Daily Circuit on the 18th anniversary of the bombing in Oklahoma City to discuss the lessons to be learned from the investigation and what to look for in the current investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.
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READ MORE ABOUT THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING:
• Andrew Gumbel: A Fresh Look at the Oklahoma City Bombing Interview with Gumbel from PRX.
• Exploring the mind of a terrorist 18 years after Oklahoma City bombing The Buffalo News reporters who wrote the book "American Terrorist" about Timothy McVeigh share what they learned about him.
• Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum The website includes information about lessons learned, the victims and the survivors.
