It’s a terrible thing to have in common, but Oklahoma City, New York, and Boston are now linked through the shared experience of being targeted with an act of terror. It’s an experience that will take some time to recover from, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating explained on Jansing & Co. Wednesday.
“It’s just the repeat horror show of one incident after another,” Keating, who resided over the state when Timothy McVeigh bombed the capital’s federal building, killing more than 150 and injuring hundreds more.
He was in office, as governor, for just two weeks, when the federal building was bombed.
“The one thing we learned was, even today, 18 years after the fact, we are still providing counseling to a number of people, particularly first responders and law enforcement types,” Keating added. “There will be a need for that for some time,” Keating said. “The emotions don’t even show for months or years.”
There are still no suspects in the Boston marathon bombings. But federal officials are looking at thousands of photos and videos and sifting through 2,000 tips.
“Oklahoma City was searing in terms of the numbers–168 dead, nearly 900 wounded. It was and remains the largest case ever handled by the FBI,” Keating said. “This one certainly was darkly similar: a bombing, innocents, celebrating America, just really an attack at the heart and soul of America.”
New York’s governor during the Sept. 11 attacks, George Pataki, insisted the country is safer today than it’s ever been and first responders and investigators are the best in the world.
“We’re an open society, we’re a free society… and that makes us vulnerable,” Pataki told Chris Jansing on Wednesday.
But those Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon shook the city and the nation to its core.
“After September 11th, it’s a new world,” the former governor said.
In the wake of the Boston bombing, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city had beefed up its security.
“We won’t let the attack in Boston keep us from our normal daily routines or enjoying the city that we love and that we so painstakingly built….Let’s not forget what happened in the past and let’s prepare for the future,” Bloomberg said at a news conference.
Watch Chris Jansing’s interview with former New York Governor George Pataki below:
