April 20, 1995
IF HE'D BEEN AT WORK . . . FORMER PORTLANDER SAYS Summary: Wayne Alley, a federal judge born in Oregon, takes the day to work at home and escapes the devastation from the blast
As a federal judge whose office faces looks across the street at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building across the street in Oklahoma City, Wayne Alley felt lucky that he didn't go to his office Wednesday.
Alley, who was born and raised in Portland, had taken the rare opportunity to work at home. ``Of all the days for this to happen, it's absolutely an amazing coincidence,'' Alley said in a telephone interview from his home.
The judge said the bombing came just a few weeks after security officials had warned him to take extra precautions. caution.
``Let me just say that within the past two or three weeks, information has been disseminated . . . that indicated concerns on the part of people who ought to know that we ought to be a little bit more careful,'' he said.
Alley, who started his law career in Portland, said he was cautioned to be on the lookout for ``people casing homes or wandering about in the courthouse who aren't supposed to be there, letter bombs. There has been an increased vigilance.''
He said he was not given an explanation for the concern.
Asked if this might have just been a periodic security reminder, he said, ``My subjective impression was there was a reason for the dissemination of these concerns.''
An FBI spokesman in Oklahoma told reporters during a news conference that he was not aware of any warning.
Not all of Only some members of Alley's staff were as lucky as he was Wednesday.
Some were in his suite of offices in the courthouse, which is across the street on the other side of the federal building from where the bomb exploded Wednesday.
Still, the force of the blast smashed the windows of his office, and one of his law clerks was injured by the flying glass.
Alley attended Washington High School in Portland and was a law clerk for an Oregon Supreme Court justice.
Despite the damage to his office, Alley said the destruction of a child care center in the federal building hit him hardest. He said his son and daughter-in-law in Oklahoma City had a baby 4 1/2 months ago, and they had considered using the facility before deciding on other child care.
``The thought that our grandchild might have been in there was the thing that was the most chilling about all of this,'' the judge said.
Istook and the OKC Cover-up
by William F. Jasper
David Kochendorfer was on his way to an insurance appointment and waiting at a stop light when the bomb went off. It was 9:02 a.m. "I looked up and saw this big black plume of smoke," he recalls. "And my first impression by the black smoke was that it was probably a [fuel] tank or something exploded."
An insurance agent by profession, Kochendorfer is also a reserve deputy with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department. He knew instinctively that his help would be needed at the explosion site. By the time he had wended his way through traffic to the Alfred P. Murrah Building, it was 9:30. The area looked like a war zone, with wounded people lying about and rescue personnel ministering to them and searching the rubble. Kochendorfer flashed his badge to a deputy sheriff and asked where he could help. He was told to join in the search effort for survivors inside the hulking remains of the devastated federal building.
Throughout the day Kochendorfer worked with other rescuers, searching for bodies of the dead as well as live victims who might be trapped. Sometime in the afternoon he teamed up with fellow reserve deputy Don Hammons, with whom he had frequently worked on past assignments.
Later that afternoon they were approached by a U.S. Marshall. His agency had taken over from the Oklahoma City Fire Department, he said, and the area was now a federal crime scene. Deputies Kochendorfer and Hammons were assigned to protect the northwest corner of the perimeter and instructed to keep all unauthorized persons out of the area.
Stunning Admission
"It was about 9:00 p.m. when the dignitaries started showing up. Governor Keating, [District Attorney] Bob Macy, and the mayor all came in with their people," recalls Kochendorfer. "I spotted Congressman [Ernest] Istook walking toward me from the east perimeter. He stopped and we spoke for about 15 to 20 minutes — small talk mostly, about what a tragedy it was and such." Then, says the deputy, the congressman uttered a stunning comment. "Istook said, ‘Yeah, we knew this was going to happen.’" Kochendorfer was shocked, and asked, "Pardon me? How did you know that?" He says Istook responded, "Well, we got word there’s an undercover … right-wing, Muslim, fundamentalist group operating in Oklahoma City," and that "an information source thought that a federal building was going to be bombed." The deputy was even more stunned.
Then, says Kochendorfer, Congressman Istook looked closely at his hat and asked, "What department are you with?" It had been raining and the deputy’s uniform was covered by a yellow slicker. Kochendorfer told him he was with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy says the Oklahoma City congressman replied, "Oh, I thought you were with the Highway Patrol," and then turned and walked away. According to Kochendorfer, his deputy’s hat and those of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol are both of the Smokey-the-Bear type, so it was easy for him to understand the congressman’s mistake. What he didn’t understand was Istook’s odd reaction and apparent snub of the Sheriff’s Department.
While Deputy Kochendorfer was talking with Istook, his partner, Don Hammons, was accompanying Lana Tyree, a local attorney, around the bombing area. He had noticed her taking photographs of the site and was under strict orders not to allow anyone but official law enforcement photographers to shoot pictures. This photo ban was put in effect for several reasons: to protect the identities of undercover officers who were working the scene; to protect the privacy of victims whose bodies or body parts were lying exposed; and to keep from having the crime scene invaded by hordes of photographers. Throughout the day, Deputy Hammons and other officers had confiscated the film of several individuals who had slipped onto the site illicitly to take photos.
According to Hammons, when he told Ms. Tyree that photography was prohibited, "she stated to me that she was with Congressman Istook and that Mr. Istook wanted her to take pictures of the crime scene." Since she had been admitted through the security gate and it was clear that she and the congressman "were definitely together," the deputy says he decided this was an exceptional case. He allowed her to take pictures, but stayed close by to be sure that none of her shots would capture any of the "photo sensitive" law enforcement officers. While they conversed, Hammons attests, Ms. Tyree stated: "Congressman Istook told me there had been a bomb threat called in back on April 9th." The startled deputy says he "thought to myself … hum … ten days. They knew for ten days?"
On Thursday, January 15th, the two deputies told their stories publicly for the first time, at a press conference called by Key’s Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee.
The outdoor press conference, held at the bombing site under the Survivors’ Tree, was opened by Key and Kathy Wilburn, whose grandsons Chase and Colton were killed in the Murrah Building’s daycare center....
As David Kochendorfer began to tell his story to the assembled reporters, aides to Congressman Istook started handing out a brief, two-sentence printed statement. The release, on Istook’s congressional stationery, declared: "It is garbage and a total fabrication to suggest that I have information that the government supposedly had prior knowledge of the Murrah Building bombing. Any such suggestion is the product of somebody’s sick and warped imagination." In subsequent interviews that night, the congressman tempered his strident response, allowing that perhaps misunderstanding and faulty memories, rather than mendacity or neurotic imaginings, were behind the allegations.
Portions of the press conference, including statements by Deputies Kochendorfer and Hammons, were carried on all four of the television news broadcasts in Oklahoma City that evening and were the focus of heated debate on Talk-Radio KTOK’s Mike McCarville Show, the state’s largest radio talk show. McCarville interviewed both deputies as well as Charles Key and Istook, then took calls from listeners and ran an automated call-in poll to see whether the radio audience found the congressman or the deputies more believable. The program prompted over 900 calls, with over 55 percent registering in favor of the deputies.