Latest news with #TimothyMcVeigh
Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Timothy McVeigh convicted
Today is Monday, June 2, the 153rd day of 2025. There are 212 days left in the year. Today in history: On June 2, 1997, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder by a federal jury in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. (McVeigh would be sentenced to death and was executed in 2001.) Also on this date: In 1886, 49-year-old President Grover Cleveland became the first president to get married in the White House, wedding 21-year-old Frances Folsom. In 1924, Congress passed, and President Calvin Coolidge signed, the Indian Citizenship Act, a measure guaranteeing full American citizenship for all Native Americans born within U.S. territorial limits. In 1941, baseball's 'Iron Horse,' Lou Gehrig, died in New York of the degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease; he was 37. In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at age 27 at a ceremony in London's Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI. In 1966, U.S. space probe Surveyor 1 landed on the moon and began transmitting detailed photographs of the lunar surface. In 1999, South Africans went to the polls in their second post-apartheid election, giving the African National Congress a decisive victory; retiring President Nelson Mandela was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. In 2012, ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison after a court convicted him on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that forced him from power (Mubarak was later acquitted and freed in March 2017; he died in February 2020). In 2016, autopsy results revealed that musician Prince died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller. Today's Birthdays: Actor Stacy Keach is 84. Filmmaker Lasse Hallström is 79. Actor Jerry Mathers is 77. Actor Joanna Gleason is 75. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is 73. Actor Dennis Haysbert is 71. Comedian Dana Carvey is 70. TV personality-producer Andy Cohen is 57. Actor-comedian Wayne Brady is 53. Actor Wentworth Miller is 53. Actor Zachary Quinto is 48. Actor Justin Long is 47. Actor Morena Baccarin is 46. Olympic soccer gold medalist Abby Wambach is 45. Actor-rapper Awkwafina is 37.
CNN
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Courtroom sketches of the Sean ‘Diddy' Combs trial are drawing quite a reaction
Not everyone is loving the sketches coming out of the latest high-profile legal drama. With cameras prohibited from the federal courtroom for the Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial, media outlets, including CNN, have employed courtroom sketch artists to illustrate the proceedings for the public. The sketches have sparked occasional criticism on social media for being cartoonish. The Law & Crime Network has even used AI to help dramatize the trial. Art Lien is a Baltimore-based courtroom sketch artist who has been in the business since the 1970s. He considers his profession more a form of journalism than art and said there are plenty of critics of both. 'Sometimes we don't do great drawings,' he told CNN. 'You're not working under the best conditions. And also, I will say that some of the sketch artists are not really that good.' Lien said he was actually fired from his first gig. 'I did such a terrible job, but it was really the materials I was bringing in. They weren't good for the courtroom,' he recalled. 'It was watercolors and they ran. I figured out the problem and I told them, 'Just let me go back and you don't have to pay me, but just let me' and they hired me back.' Having worked on several highly-publicized cases, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's trial, Lien said his sketches have faced a fair amount of scrutiny over the years, like the ones he drew of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Rolling Stone magazine had put a photo of Tsarnaev on the cover and he 'looked kind of romantic,' the artist said. 'When I did my sketches of him in the courtroom that were not as flattering, I just got all this feedback from young women who had kind of fallen for Tsarnaev,' Lien recalled. Social media - with a never-ending scroll of video and photos - has conditioned the public to expect realistic images in real time. Sketches of celebrities with famous faces are subject to even more judgement. Cedric Hohnstadt is an illustrator, cartoonist and concept artist who has also worked for years as a courtroom sketch artist. He said the case for having cameras in courtrooms include the need for transparency, as well as the desire to 'increase the peoples' faith in the judiciary process and give them greater trust.' But he also understands why some trials aren't streamed or photographed. 'Cameras tend to emphasize what's dramatic rather than what's important. They're not always the same thing,' said Hohnstadt, who lives in Minnesota. 'You can have something sensational, but maybe isn't really directly related to the substance of the trial and the charges, that plays better in a video that gets shared and goes viral on social media.' 'Social media rewards a rush to judgment, and the whole point of a trial is to reserve judgment until you've heard both sides,' he added. Christine Cornell has been sketching the Combs trial for CNN. As she enjoys her 50th year as a courtroom artist, Cornell said she's become less concerned with what people on social media may think about her work. 'Diddy's mom said she liked my work,' Cornell added. 'She tapped me on the shoulder and she gave me a thumbs up and an okay sign.' Combs is just the most recent celebrity whose likeness she has tried to capture. Some of Cornell's past work includes NFL superstar Tom Brady's 'Deflategate' case and John Gotti's trial in which his underboss, Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano, flipped on the famous mobster. Cornell, who is based in New Jersey, has been capturing the action at trials for so long that she's seen all of the changes. 'It used to be news crews would wait for us outside and we'd tape it up against the wall or against the side of a news truck. and various stations would stand online to take their turn,' she told CNN. 'Then we got clever.' Because she had a husband who was a 'techie,' Cornell said, she was an early adopter of using her phone to take pictures of her sketches to send them electronically to her clients. What has not changed, Lien, Hohnstadt and Cornell all agreed, is the need to make sure you have a good vantage point in courtl. The time allotted also matters because it's more difficult to get an accurate sketch if the courtroom action is quick, they said. Most importantly, Hohnstadt emphasized, sketch artists act as surrogates for those who cannot attend. 'I try to portray what's happening as fairly as I can and look for things that are interesting or dramatic, but not in a way that editorializes or not in a way that takes away from the substance of what's really happening,' he said. 'Sometimes the most important stuff looks boring.'
CNN
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Courtroom sketches of the Sean ‘Diddy' Combs trial are drawing quite a reaction
Not everyone is loving the sketches coming out of the latest high-profile legal drama. With cameras prohibited from the federal courtroom for the Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial, media outlets, including CNN, have employed courtroom sketch artists to illustrate the proceedings for the public. The sketches have sparked occasional criticism on social media for being cartoonish. The Law & Crime Network has even used AI to help dramatize the trial. Art Lien is a Baltimore-based courtroom sketch artist who has been in the business since the 1970s. He considers his profession more a form of journalism than art and said there are plenty of critics of both. 'Sometimes we don't do great drawings,' he told CNN. 'You're not working under the best conditions. And also, I will say that some of the sketch artists are not really that good.' Lien said he was actually fired from his first gig. 'I did such a terrible job, but it was really the materials I was bringing in. They weren't good for the courtroom,' he recalled. 'It was watercolors and they ran. I figured out the problem and I told them, 'Just let me go back and you don't have to pay me, but just let me' and they hired me back.' Having worked on several highly-publicized cases, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's trial, Lien said his sketches have faced a fair amount of scrutiny over the years, like the ones he drew of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Rolling Stone magazine had put a photo of Tsarnaev on the cover and he 'looked kind of romantic,' the artist said. 'When I did my sketches of him in the courtroom that were not as flattering, I just got all this feedback from young women who had kind of fallen for Tsarnaev,' Lien recalled. Social media - with a never-ending scroll of video and photos - has conditioned the public to expect realistic images in real time. Sketches of celebrities with famous faces are subject to even more judgement. Cedric Hohnstadt is an illustrator, cartoonist and concept artist who has also worked for years as a courtroom sketch artist. He said the case for having cameras in courtrooms include the need for transparency, as well as the desire to 'increase the peoples' faith in the judiciary process and give them greater trust.' But he also understands why some trials aren't streamed or photographed. 'Cameras tend to emphasize what's dramatic rather than what's important. They're not always the same thing,' said Hohnstadt, who lives in Minnesota. 'You can have something sensational, but maybe isn't really directly related to the substance of the trial and the charges, that plays better in a video that gets shared and goes viral on social media.' 'Social media rewards a rush to judgment, and the whole point of a trial is to reserve judgment until you've heard both sides,' he added. Christine Cornell has been sketching the Combs trial for CNN. As she enjoys her 50th year as a courtroom artist, Cornell said she's become less concerned with what people on social media may think about her work. 'Diddy's mom said she liked my work,' Cornell added. 'She tapped me on the shoulder and she gave me a thumbs up and an okay sign.' Combs is just the most recent celebrity whose likeness she has tried to capture. Some of Cornell's past work includes NFL superstar Tom Brady's 'Deflategate' case and John Gotti's trial in which his underboss, Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano, flipped on the famous mobster. Cornell, who is based in New Jersey, has been capturing the action at trials for so long that she's seen all of the changes. 'It used to be news crews would wait for us outside and we'd tape it up against the wall or against the side of a news truck. and various stations would stand online to take their turn,' she told CNN. 'Then we got clever.' Because she had a husband who was a 'techie,' Cornell said, she was an early adopter of using her phone to take pictures of her sketches to send them electronically to her clients. What has not changed, Lien, Hohnstadt and Cornell all agreed, is the need to make sure you have a good vantage point in courtl. The time allotted also matters because it's more difficult to get an accurate sketch if the courtroom action is quick, they said. Most importantly, Hohnstadt emphasized, sketch artists act as surrogates for those who cannot attend. 'I try to portray what's happening as fairly as I can and look for things that are interesting or dramatic, but not in a way that editorializes or not in a way that takes away from the substance of what's really happening,' he said. 'Sometimes the most important stuff looks boring.'
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- Daily Mail
Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Documentary examining the 1995 bombing of a US federal building Year: 2025 Certificate: 15 At 9.02am on 19 April 1995, a truck bomb exploded immediately outside the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The damage it caused was immense, destroying one-third of the building, injuring 684 people and leaving killing 167 dead. Carried out by anti-government extremists from within America itself, it remains the most deadly act of domestic terrorism in US history. This documentary from filmmaker Greg Tillman presents a moment-by-moment reconstruction of the chaos that followed the attack, while also digging into the investigation that eventually tracked down the mastermind behind it, Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh. It's a fascinating, if frequently harrowing, film that digs deep into the FBI's efforts to find the perpetrators, the strokes of luck that helped them succeed and the twisted personal beliefs that drove McVeigh's actions. (82 minutes)
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
30 years later, letters to the US&J offer insight into Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing
Thirty years ago today, what was then the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history shook the nation to its core. It was an act that appeared to have been foretold, a little more than three years earlier, in a letter to the editor of the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal. The letter arrived in early February 1992, written by a young man named Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was from Pendleton, a town of about 6,000 people on the southern edge of Niagara County. Pendleton was, and is still, a quiet, mostly rural community, not a hotbed of hate. But McVeigh's letter screeched with anger and rage towards the U.S. government. The managing editor of the US&J decided to print the McVeigh letter because, in the words of an unidentified former employee of the paper, 'We have a longstanding policy; we print every letter.' The letter appeared in the paper's print edition on Feb. 11, 1992. None of the editors at that time found the anti-government screed to be a cause for alarm. No one saw it as a canary in a terrorist coal mine. Only three years later would then-managing editor Dan Kane re-read McVeigh's letter, and a second one sent in March 1992, and call them 'chilling.' 'There was one paragraph in particular that made my heart stop a little bit,' Kane told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. 'It was the one that said: 'shed blood.' After Oklahoma City, I certainly look at it as a sort of eerie and prophetic statement.' It was three years later, at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, that McVeigh would trigger the detonator on a massive truck bomb parked in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. The force of the explosion obliterated the building, killing 168 people, many of them children, and wounding 680 others, many of them severely. Inside the building were the offices of 14 federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, recruiting stations for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and a child daycare center. The explosion devastated a 16-block area of downtown Oklahoma City, destroying or damaging 324 other buildings and causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage. HINDSIGHT Thomas Beilein served as the Niagara County Sheriff for almost 15 years, from 1994 to 2008. He says with 20-20 hindsight, McVeigh's writings should have been a warning. 'I think if that letter came today, the newspaper would want to contact authorities and let them know this looks dangerous,' Beilein said. 'Especially with what happened 30 years ago.' McVeigh was a decorated Army vet who had served in the Gulf War. In his first letter, published Feb. 11, 1992, he wrote in revolutionary terms. 'What is it going to take to open up the eyes of our elected officials? AMERICA IS IN SERIOUS DECLINE,' McVeigh wrote. 'We have no proverbial tea to dump; should we instead sink a ship full of Japanese imports?' The unidentified US&J employee who spoke with the LA Times reporter said letters like McVeigh's were not uncommon in the early 1990s. 'We have a fair amount of that kind of mail, and it's probably encouraged because we allow it (to be published),' the employee told the Times reporter, David Willman. McVeigh's two rambling letters were discovered after the Oklahoma City bombing when a reader called the paper to say he remembered having read letters to the editor signed by Tim McVeigh. 'Is a civil war imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system?', McVeigh asked in his first letter. 'I hope it doesn't come to that! But it might.' Beilein said he finds McVeigh's views from more than 30 years ago eerily similar to political rhetoric being used in the United States today. 'It's a reflection on the state of our nation,' the former sheriff said. 'Look at the reactions to the school shootings that have taken place (since the Oklahoma City bombing). Are they really any different? Are the school shooters any different than Tim McVeigh?' PROPHECY McVeigh's letters revealed a young man who deeply distrusted the federal government and who, after his discharge from the Army, had drifted into the growing militia movement of the early 1990s. He would regularly attend gun shows where he would pass out leaflets that repeated right-wing militia talking points, and he hawked copies of his favorite book, The Turner Diaries. The Turner Diaries was a 1978 novel that depicted a violent revolution in the U.S. that leads to the overthrow of the federal government, a nuclear war and, ultimately, a race war. In his first letter, McVeigh referenced a race war. 'Racism on the rise? You had better believe it!,' he wrote. 'At a point when the world has seen communism falter as an imperfect system to manage people; democracy seems to be heading down the same road. Maybe we have to combine ideologies to achieve the perfect utopian government.' McVeigh's letters also contained a list of government grievances as common in conservative media today as they were then. 'Crime is out of control. Criminals have no fear of punishment. Prisons are overcrowded so they know they will not be imprisoned long,' McVeigh predicted. 'Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate 'promises,' they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up, we suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight.' Finally, McVeigh made it clear in his writing that if something didn't change, the American middle class, which he believed represented him and his family, would disappear. 'Politicians are further eroding the 'American Dream' by passing laws which are supposed to be a 'quick fix,' when all they are really designed for is to get the official reelected,' he wrote. 'These laws tend to 'dilute' a problem for a while, until the problem comes roaring back in a worsened form. (Much like a strain of bacteria will alter itself to defeat a known medication.)' A SECOND LETTER McVeigh wrote to the US&J again in March 1992. This time he seemed focused less on politics and more on issues of life and death. The letter, published on March 10, 1992, attacked veganism, while speculating on how killing prey in the wild is preferable to meat processing. McVeigh wrote of the 'clean, merciful shot' taken by a hunter so that the prey 'dies in his own environment, quick and unexpected.' He compared that to the slaughter of cattle. Which, he wrote, had 'less dignity.' 'Would you rather die while living happily or die while leading a miserable life, you tell me which is more 'humane'? ' McVeigh wrote. Not long after McVeigh's arrest for the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI came calling for the original copies of his two letters to the US&J. The federal agents also sought a third letter, written by his sister Jennifer in early 1995. Published by the US&J on March 10, 1995, Jennifer McVeigh's letter railed against 'communism, gun control, permissive sex and the L.A. riots.' She also referenced the August 1992 confrontation in Idaho between federal agents and a survivalist named Randall Weaver, and the 1993 siege by federal agents of the weapons-filled compound of the Branch Davidians sect near Waco, Texas. That siege ended in the deaths of 86 people. In a perhaps eerie echo of her brother, Jennifer McVeigh also predicted the coming of an America ruled by 'a single authoritarian dictatorship.' After taking the letters, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Kane to testify before the federal grand jury in Oklahoma City that would indict McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols. TRIAL AND CONVICTION Beilein said he vividly remembers the phone call he received from federal agents, telling him they identified McVeigh as the Oklahoma City bomber. 'It was shocking,' he said. 'You knew (the bombing) was horrific and what made it worse was this was someone who grew up in our backyard.' The FBI asked Beilein what his investigators might know about McVeigh and suggested that he send deputies to McVeigh's family home in Pendleton, 'to see what was there and protect the occupants from possible retaliation.' What Beilein's deputies found was a gaggle of reporters. 'It was something we weren't used to,' Beilein said. 'There were satellite trucks up and down the road. The whole country was focused on Tim McVeigh.' Just over two years after the bombing, on April 24, 1997, McVeigh's trial, on 11 counts of murder and related charges, began in U.S. District Court in Denver. The case had been moved there from Oklahoma City over fair trial concerns. Nichols would be tried later both in federal court and Oklahoma state courts. McVeigh's trial featured 137 witnesses, including McVeigh's sister, and lasted roughly five weeks. A jury found him guilty on all counts. Following a hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch found factors sufficient to sentence McVeigh to death. The execution was set to take place at the United States Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana. THE EXECUTION Former Niagara Gazette reporter Valerie Pillo was sent to Terre Haute to cover the execution. She had been involved in the paper's coverage of McVeigh in the aftermath of the bombing and during the trial. Pillo was also one of a small group of journalists who regularly attempted to speak to McVeigh's father. William 'Bill' McVeigh spoke, on the record, to only one reporter, who became a family spokesman while still covering the story and later wrote a book about McVeigh. For Pillo, her contact with Bill McVeigh consisted of what she called 'talks in the garden.' Bill McVeigh was known to be an avid gardener. Pillo said he would sometimes welcome a few reporters he had grown to know to chat while he gardened. 'I think what happened was a complete shock to Bill,' Pillo said. 'He didn't want the spotlight. He didn't know how to handle it and didn't want to handle it.' McVeigh even questioned Pillo's motivations in visiting him. 'He said, 'Are you only coming over here 'cause you want to interview me?'' Pillo recalled. As his son's execution day drew nearer, Pillo had more 'talks in the garden' with Bill McVeigh. 'There were some victim families who had reached out to (Bill) and they were very gracious,' Pillo said he had told her. 'Several became friends with him in their shared grief.' Bill McVeigh told Pillo he would not attend his son's execution. He said those were 'Tim's wishes' and he would instead visit relatives in North Carolina. 'Why would I go to that?' she said McVeigh asked her. And the bomber's father didn't like it when Pillo told him she would be covering the execution. 'He wasn't happy I was going,' she remembered. 'He said, 'Why are you going? Why do you have to be there?'' The execution took place on June 11, 2001, just three months before America would be shaken to its core again by the foreign terrorist attacks of 9/11. LESSONS Three decades later, Beilein still struggles to find lessons learned from the Oklahoma City bombing and the life of Tim McVeigh. 'I don't think America took too many lessons away from this,' he said. 'To some people and groups, McVeigh is considered a martyr and that just encourages others.' And the long-time lawman said if McVeigh were still alive, he thinks the son of Pendleton would be thriving in the America of 2025. 'It wouldn't have surprised me at all if Tim McVeigh would have been at (the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on) Jan. 6 or be a member of the Proud Boys. He was just a cold-blooded killer with no motive.'
