TheFBI in the past refused to release the security camera recordings,leading Trentadue and others to contend the government was hidingevidence that others were involved in the attack.
Long-secret security tapes showing the chaos immediately after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building are blank in the minutes before the blast and appear to have been edited, an attorney who obtained the recordings said Sunday.
“The real story is what’s missing,” said Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who obtained the recordings through the federal Freedom of Information Actas part of an unofficial inquiry he is conducting into the April 19,1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.
Trentaduegave copies of the tapes to The Oklahoman newspaper, which posted themonline and provided copies to The Associated Press.
The tapes turned over by the FBI came from security cameras various companies had mounted outside office buildings near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.They are blank at points before 9:02 a.m., when a truck bomb carrying a4,000 pound fertilizer-and-fuel-oil bomb detonated in front of thebuilding, Trentadue said.
“Four cameras in fourdifferent locations going blank at basically the same time on themorning of April 19, 1995. There ain’t no such thing as a coincidence,”Trentadue said.
(Editor’s note: The AP’s farcical title to this report, that the tapes “appear” to have been edited, now flies right out the window.)
He said government officialsclaim the security cameras did not record the minutes before thebombing because “they had run out of tape” or “the tape was beingreplaced.”
“The interesting thing is theyspring back on after 9:02,” he said. “The absence of footage from thesecrucial time intervals is evidence that there is something there thatthe FBI doesn’t want anybody to see.”
A spokesman for the FBI in Oklahoma City,Gary Johnson, declined to comment and referred inquiries about thetapes to FBI officials in Washington, who were not immediatelyavailable for comment Sunday.
The soundlessrecordings show people rushing from nearby buildings after the bombwent off. Some show people fleeing through corridors cluttered withdebris. None show the actual explosion that ripped through the federalbuilding.
FBI agents did not report finding any security tapes from the federal building itself.
TheFBI in the past refused to release the security camera recordings,leading Trentadue and others to contend the government was hidingevidence that others were involved in the attack.
“It’s taken a lawsuit and years to get the tapes,” Trentadue said.
Hereceived the latest batch of tapes over the summer in response to anApril request for video from security cameras in 11 differentlocations. Nothing on the tapes was unexpected.
“Themore important thing they show is what they don’t show,” Trentaduesaid. “These cameras would have shown the various roads and approachesto the Murrah Building.”
Trentadue began looking into the bombing after his brother, Kenneth Trentadue, died at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center in August 1995. Kenneth Trentadue was a convicted bank robber who was held at the federal prison after being picked up as a parole violator at his home in San Diego in June 1995.
Hewas never a bombing suspect, but Jesse Trentadue alleges guards mistookhis brother for one and beat him to death during an interrogation. Theofficial cause of Kenneth Trentadue’s death is listed as suicide, buthis body had 41 wounds and bruises that Jesse Trentadue believes couldhave come only from a beating.
A judge in 2001awarded Kenneth Trentadue’s family $1.1 million for extreme emotionaldistress in the government’s handling of his death.
Jesse Trentadue said he has received about 30 security tapes, including some images that were used as evidence at bomber Timothy McVeigh’s trial. McVeigh was convicted on federal murder and conspiracy charges and executed in 2001. Coconspirator Terry Nichols is serving life in prison on federal and state bombing convictions.
Trentadue said he is seeking more tapes along with a variety of bombing-related documents from the FBI and the CIA. An FOIA request by Trentadue for 26 CIA documents was rejected in June. A letter from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which reviewed the documents, said their release “could cause grave damage to our national security.”
Trentadue said he gave the latest set of tapes to The Oklahoman because of their historical value. The newspaper has agreed to provide copies to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum.