Domestic Terrorism

Timothy Mc­Veigh Fan Arrested for Copycat Plot

Written by SK Ashby

Everything old is new again.

A self-professed admirer of domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh, the man who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, was arrested on Friday for attempting to blow up a local bank in Oklahoma City.

Jerry Drake Varnell, 23, was arrested after he tried to blow up a cargo van filled with (fake) explosives at a local BancFirst bank branch.

Varnell was arrested after using a burner phone that belonged to an undercover FBI agent to remotely detonate what he thought was the bomb. When the bomb didn’t go off, he dialed the number at least two more times. He was arrested at 12:54 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Varnell came to the FBI’s attention in December when a source told federal agents that Varnell wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C., “in a manner similar to the Oklahoma City Bombing,” according to an affidavit from a FBI agent.

Court documents and the source who originally tipped off the FBI detailed Varnell's motivations. He sought to spark a revolution just as McVeigh hoped to in 1995, describing the infamous Oklahoma City bombing as "retaliation" for taking away our freedoms.

The thing is, Varnell is only 23 years old. He was born in 1994. He was a baby when McVeigh attacked Oklahoma City in 1995. It's possible he wasn't even walking yet when 168 people were killed in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. He probably wasn't able to talk yet when our "freedoms" were supposedly taken away.

The past is never dead. It's not even past.