Oklahoma City bombing United States. These stereotypes may have impacted how individuals acted after the bombing, and can explain why the media assumed that Middle Eastern groups were responsible. In the case of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Hamzi Moghrabi, chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, blamed the media for the attacks on Muslims and Arabs that took place just days after the bombing. As the rescue effort wound down, the media interest shifted to the investigation, arrests, and trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and on the search for an additional suspect named "John Doe Number Two." Several witnesses claimed to have
Timothy McVeigh 1980s, and a membership in the National Rifle Association while in the Army, and there is no evidence that he ever belonged to any extremist groups. McVeigh was raised Roman Catholic. During his childhood, he and his father attended Mass regularly. McVeigh was confirmed at the Good Shepherd Church in Pendleton, New York, in 1985. In a 1996 interview, McVeigh professed belief in "a God", although he said he had "sort of lost touch with" Catholicism and "I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs." In McVeigh's biography "American Terrorist", released in 2002, he stated that