OKC Bombing; OKC Bombing FBI

Let me talk briefly about the structure and goals of this investigation. First and primary, of course, is to locate any survivors who may remain in that building. Everything will defer to that number one priority. Secondly, we will remove and identify any remaining victims. Third priority, and this will be our major focus for the moment, is to process in a forensic way the crime scene, and that will take us several weeks. We, of course, during the process of that primary focus, that is to process the crime scene itself for evidence. We will immediately pursue all leads nationally, as well as internationally, that modernize from this case.

Lastly, let me emphasize that this is a full cooperative effort between all of the agencies that I've mentioned in the federal government, as well as with the state of Oklahoma, the city of Oklahoma City and other law enforcement entities. At this point, I will open it for questions. No, I can't comment on that. In fact, I should at this point make clear that as far as the actual interviews, development of suspects, the conduct of the investigation itself, I cannot be specific about those items, because it's an ongoing investigation. No, I'm not denying.

I'm really telling you that I cannot comment on that. I'm sorry. We've broadened the list of suspects. As you might imagine, there's been an overwhelming response by this community, and in fact, throughout the nation concerning this incident, we at this point have literally hundreds of leads to pursue. We have not, at this point, identified any suspects. We have many, many, many leads to pursue, and we're pursuing them all very vigorously. No, I cannot confirm that we've questioned any suspects, no. No, we've not ruled anyone out at this point. I'm not aware of that. I know I cannot, but I can tell you at this point, information that we're receiving about

persons that are being called in, about, range from every spectrum that you can possibly imagine of the political climate, right wing, left wing, you name it, at this point. And there are so many hundreds and hundreds of those. We're in the process of sorting through those, and that is why I tell you at this point, we cannot even discuss having a suspect, we do not have any such thing at this point in time. We merely are processing hundreds and hundreds of leads. I'm very confident that we will do that. I know for a fact that every resource of the federal government, we've committed towards that end. This morning spoke to Director Fried, who has spoken to the President and to the Attorney General, and they have assured me that every resource, any requirement, any need that we might have will be immediately provided.

No, I could not do that at this point. In terms of the processing of the scene, well our first area that we're working on is the wide perimeter. As you know, there's a considerable, several block area that have been sealed off, and due to the magnitude of this explosion, there's no doubt that items of evidence will be found possibly even blocks away from the actual blast site. So our further priority is going to be to process that outer perimeter to narrow the area that's sealed off as quickly as we can so we can turn the city back as chief has mentioned to them in the streets and to the business and people who live there. Secondarily, then after we've done that perimeter narrowing, then we will be focusing as we're able to because of the structure of the building in jeopardy and it's being braced and farmed

up, then we will be actually processing the debris, removing that debris, processing that for any items of evidentiary value. And you can imagine there are tons of rubble so it would be a very long term process. Mr. Kennedy, what about the bomb? Have you narrowed down what kind of bomb you think it may be? No, at this point we have not arrived at that determination. I hope to have that sometime today. As far as searching rescue, I have to defer to the party department. As I said, we will pursue leads both nationally and internationally as they arrive and as it's necessary to do so.

I'm not implying we're doing that at this point, but I'm certain with the alerts that have gone out worldwide for any information pertaining to this incident that something will be produced, it could be anywhere in the world, and if wherever that may be, we will pursue it vigorously. There's one question over here. How many people are going in question to choose for? I can't answer that question. An update on the search and rescue chief. At that point in time, our fatality count remains as you probably got it earlier this morning. No additional bodies have been retrieved from the building at this time. We've got two female urban search and rescue teams in place and working the building as we speak. We have two more on the ground, I believe, that have arrived. We have two more in the air. We'll have six in place before dark tonight, probably, and there are two more on alert, so those bring in 50 people a piece for those teams.

Then we have the, any one time, we'll have probably 150 Oklahoma City fire rescue involved in that, coordinate those efforts. The count is still, as you heard it this morning. I talked just briefly to the coordinator of the search and rescue teams before I come up here. They definitely have bodies that they know, or either visible, they know where they're at, that they have not retrieved for the building, so that count will rise during the day. We'll try to keep you updated as I've reported yesterday. We will not report anything other than what comes out confirmed of the building to keep the speculation down. The mayor just informed me that it's a number that was assigned yesterday for people that were in the building to call, so we could try to track accountability on it. We have up to 700 that have called in from the building and said that they were there and out. That will probably lower the unaccounted number, some we don't have a number on the unaccounted, so to speak, but those rescue efforts are ongoing.

They have some stability problems they're addressing in the building. They've already shored up one of the foundation columns. They've got two others that they're addressing. They're going to do some beam placement and some shoring on those and some shoring on the floor levels to keep the floors above them stable. We are turning now to a very slow tedious process, and they've got the most sophisticated techniques they have available right now. We have audio listening devices. We have the cameras, the small cameras that can get in there. We're using numerous dog teams from time to time. They'll shut down operations to try to quiet the scene and send some of those dogs and people back through again, so we're using every opportunity we can to find any remaining people in the building. Are you still hearing cars from survivors at this point? Yes, they were hearing people yelling for help.

I have no reports of it. I've got no reports that we're hearing anything at this point, no. We have 33, actually 36 confirmed fatalities, 33 were on the scene fatalities, and we had three that were transported initially and have died at the hospital, 432 have been treated at local hospitals at last count, and of the 36 fatalities, 12 of those are children. Well, I don't know that I can. I've been at that numerous times in the last 24 hours, but it's just devastation. There's no semblance on any of the floors that are remaining to the office environment, other than you might make a semblance of a desk or a file cabinet, but the concrete rubble in the debris is just scattered dead, it's just like walking through. If you've got any kind of long range pictures of the rubble outside of the building, you're

having to walk through that same rubble on the inside of the building also, so it's just a long process at this point. I believe the 15-year-old female about 10 o'clock last night was the last survivor that was pulled out. Not at this time. We had a report that the daycare center was licensed for 32 maximum. I don't know if that was what was in it. I don't know that the 12 children fatalities are totally out of the daycare center. We may have had people in there just with children doing business, so we can't use that as a tracking number either. Well unfortunately the daycare center area is one of those that's under the pancake collapse and they're doing their best to come in from the back side as best they can with, again, the listening devices and the cameras, but that's going to be the longer tedious process

of the rubble outside of the building and the best guess I got from the team this morning was after putting their heads together through the night and looking at it, we're probably looking at four to six days before they can give me any high percentage of assurance that the building is clear. She wanted to decide if the craters in front of the building had wasn't that kind of whatever vehicle might have been thrown at the bottom. I don't know about the vehicle, you'll have to talk to the FBI about that. I think the crater diameter was reported last night at 20, the death of it, I don't know, there's still debris in the rubble. Question was can I comment on whether or not there was a videotape somewhere in the vicinity

which might have coverage of the people who did this, no, I can't comment on that. Any lead that we would develop to tell you a vehicle, as I pointed out before, we would immediately have that covered, but I can't comment specifically on this particular vehicle. Question was can I tell the American public this morning that we're any closer to finding

out who did this than we were yesterday? In the answer to that question is no, I cannot. As I pointed out, we have literally hundreds of leads, we're processing all of those. It may very well be that within those, we have the information that we need to finally resolve this case, but we do not know that at this time. The question is that there was an APB out on three individuals and you're asking if I can confirm that, no, I cannot confirm that at this time. Question is a comment on whether there was more than one vehicle involved and can I get

into the chronology, no, I cannot. Let me say at this time that we will have another press conference, three o'clock this afternoon here, similarly attended, and at that time I hope to be able to have some more specifics on item such as you've just questioned me about. To my knowledge at this point, we only have one device, no others have been found, that is correct. Question here. Again, no, I can't, but as you might recall, the World Trade Center bombing was in fact one vehicle bomb in that particular instance and the devastation there was indeed massive.

This indeed was a very large and massive explosion as witnessed by the not only destruction to the building itself, but to the surrounding parts of the city. We have not at this point are able to come up with an assessment as to the exact construction that device and or its content. The question was, can I comment on whether the FBI here locally was investigating fundamentalist or other organizations and I cannot comment on that this time. Thank you very much. As Agent Kennedy said, we will have another question. You've been listening to it.